


Experiments in Love

by writerfan2013



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: ExperimentsinLove, Firstkiss, Johnlock - Freeform, Love, M/M, Mystery, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2013-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-08 14:06:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 40,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/762182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerfan2013/pseuds/writerfan2013
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is curious about love and decides to pursue it. This started as drabbles, just for fun ... then  turned into a story which is deeper than expected.</p><p>johnlock alert!</p><p>My stuff is currently all on fanfiction.net.</p><p>I love to know what people think of my stories so please comment. This story is complete. </p><p>-Sef</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A chair scraping back suddenly

****

A chair scraping back suddenly

"I am aware that I can seem cold and uncaring."

Sherlock picked up and uncorked the Pinot Grigio without breaking eye contact with the woman sitting opposite. He poured into each of their glasses.

"But I have come to believe that personal attachments can be useful elements in a human support network, leading to increased emotional security and greater productivity overall."

He lifted his glass and his date wordlessly matched his move. "Cheers."

They clinked.

"Now," Sherlock said briskly, "What qualities do you have that I might care about?"

There was a pause.

Sherlock sighed. He was getting used to the sound of chairs scraping back quickly. "Fine, fine, go on then, bye."

He sipped his wine and read the menu. Another fruitless venture. The food here looked good though. Maybe John was free.


	2. Hair gel

"You look nice." John muted the telly and gave Sherlock a closer look. "You look... casual."

Sherlock stood in the living room wrinkling his nose. He wore a chunky knit cream jumper, blue jeans, beige shirt and no tie. The shirt collar was left loose and open. He had... gelled his hair back.

"It's certainly different," John said after a pause.

"Different is good," said Sherlock. "The same was getting me nowhere." He plucked at the jumper. "Although the slackness of these clothes leaves me feeling half awake."

"I still don't understand what you're hoping to achieve with all this - Hang on, are those my clothes?"

Sherlock shrugged. "Just the jumper. And the shirt."

"Is a man's wardrobe no longer sacred?" John rolled his eyes, sighed. There was no point getting worked up about it. Sherlock did what Sherlock did. At least it wasn't his underwear drawer. He assumed. "Ok then, let's have a look. Give us a twirl."

"No."

"Suit yourself." John looked down. "You can't wear Oxford brogues with that getup."

"Why not?"

"It's just wrong. Look, I'm no fashion expert but the shoes make you look like you've been playing in the dressing up box."

Sherlock's mouth twitched. "What shoes then?"

"Um... some kind of-"

"Don't say it!" Sherlock gave John a warning glare.

"Everybody wears them! You always act like it's some kind of mark of idiocy but in fact everybody does actually wear them."

"I am not wearing trainers."

"Fine." John folded his arms. "Then rest assured you will be able to enter any gentleman's club in town, but will be laughed out of a Harvester."

"That's all right then," Sherlock said, somewhat marring the dressed down effect by putting on his long black coat and scarf. "Because I am not going to a Harvester."

"Where are you taking this evening's date?"

"The pub." He said the words as if he had just learned them from an English Idioms guidebook.

"Great. Well, have fun with tonight's lucky lady."

"I won't. And it's not a lady."

John's eyebrows shot up, but Sherlock was already out of the door.


	3. Further than  a pint

John was in his bedroom, writing up his blog, when he heard the front door of the flat bang shut.

He ventured downstairs and found Sherlock humming and pottering about in the dimly lit kitchen, inspecting this and that jar of unmentionable biosample. "He's gone, then," John observed. "That seemed to go very well." It was a question.

"Yes," said Sherlock, "didn't it." He straightened some eyeball containers and shut the fridge door with a flourish.

"Do you think you'll see him again?"

"Oh yes. -We didn't disturb you with our talking, did we?"

"No, no. I just.. thought I'd leave you two to it." Whatever 'it' was. John knew what he thought he'd seen, but with Sherlock, it was hard to be sure.

"It's great, he knows such a lot about things that interest me. And he's read almost as much as I have. We just sat and talked for hours."

Sherlock was glowing.

"He's coming round tomorrow night, you don't mind, do you? Good."

"No, it's fine... " John followed Sherlock into the living room.

"I think I'm making progress," Sherlock said. "At last."

"He really does seem to fancy you," John said carefully.

"What? Oh. Yes. I suppose."

"He couldn't take his eyes off you. And I noticed a few ... straying hands too."

John waited, but Sherlock did not react. He tried again. "I'm not trying to pry..."

"Clearly you are or you wouldn't be asking."

"Ok, a bit. But... have you thought this through? I know, stupid question, it's you, but have you? I mean... what about.. taking things further?"

"Further?"

"Further than a pint in the pub."

Sherlock waited.

"Sex," said John. "I'm talking about sex."

He had a sudden thought and struggled to keep Sherlock from reading it in his face. He couldn't ask that. Didn't want to know. But had now wondered it and couldn't unthink it. He winced.

"Oh," said Sherlock, "that. Well, we'll just see what happens."

"That's very laissez-faire ."

"Yes, John, that's what laissez-faire means."

"No, I mean... if you see what happens, then I can confidently predict that what will happen is that you will get jumped, and not in the distant future either. I mean, tomorrow. Or now."

"Oh. I see." Sherlock pondered. "I don't think I could..."

John looked at him.

"I mean, I could, of course I could, but I don't want to. No, that's it. I don't want to."

"Right. So now you've led this poor bloke on and he thinks you really like him..."

"I do! We've got a lot in common. I really think this attachment could be very productive for me." Sherlock frowned. "Oh, why is this so difficult? I don't understand why people invest so much time and effort in something with so little reward! And I had ... fun ... this evening. But now you're saying that that isn't right."

"Sherlock, I think what you've stumbled across here isn't love. It's friendship."

"Oh."

"It's technically still an attachment though. Even if I think in this case you might have to break it off before you trample on someone's heart."

Sherlock sat down heavily on the sofa, clasped his hands around his knees. "Damn."

"Sorry."

"But John - what's the difference? I did like him, I really did. What's the difference between love and friendship? How can you tell?"

John looked at him for a long time. Then he shook his head. "I haven't got an answer for that. I don't know. Maybe you can't tell."

Sherlock flung himself backwards to lie gazing up at the ceiling. "This needs more thought."

"Right." John scooped the day's paper off the kitchen counter. "I'm off to bed. You coming?"

"What? Oh. No. I'll see you in the morning."

"Night then."

"Night." Sherlock closed his eyes.

John switched off the lights and but for the tick of the clock and the slow steady sound of Sherlock's breathing, the living room was silent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: Please comment, I would love to know what you think of this!


	4. Really not into you

Lots of people would love to get their hands on him. The thought makes him shiver. His website is clogged up with offers he cannot bear to read, never mind respond to. Many of them describe in detail his personal, his physical appeal.

John's blog suffers a similar phenomenon, though at least those requests are couched in such a way that John can pretend that he has been unable to contact Sherlock to convey the irresistible offers.

Tall. dark, handsome. Is he handsome? It doesn't matter. Yet to dozens of women, and men, his outward appearance means that his mind is made appealing.

I would love to listen to you all night, they claim, yet Sherlock suspects that what this really means is, I would love to have sex with you all night.

It is highly unlikely that a single one of his ... suitors... is there a feminine of suitor? No ... would be able to sustain an interesting conversation for a minute , let alone for several hours.

Others claim to love him for his mind. And yet there it is, love, invoked when intellect is supposedly the focus of their interest.

Sherlock pulls open his shirt as he lies on the sofa, places his hand on his bare chest. His heart beats. Electrical pulses, managed adeptly by self balancing chemicals, able to speed up or slow down to meet the situation as perceived by the mind.

Sherlock's heart beats faster for... lots of things. The chase. The unexpected. The strange and different and new. But not for love. Not for a person.

Sherlock drops his hand, lets it hang over the edge of the sofa.

"John!"

His bellow fills the flat.

There is a long pause before John replies. When he does, it is echoey, and faint, as if from a great distance.

"I am in. The bath."

"Why don't I care, John? Why don't I fall in love with people? You do, all the time, so what is it that you do that I don't do?" Sherlock flings his arms up, drops them back again.

Another long pause, like a sigh.

"I do not fall in love with people all the time. And if you don't care about being in love, then don't. Don't worry about it, and I am in. The bath."

Sherlock grimaces. "I don't care. It's just an experience, like zero gravity -oh, d'you remember that parabolic flight, John, that was incredible wasn't it? - just an experience I wish to have, that's all."

The pause after this is long, so long that when John speaks again it makes Sherlock jump.

"I don't think you can just choose to experience love, like one of those days you can buy in a box in WHSmiths." John comes and sits on the arm of the sofa by Sherlock's bare feet.

"It's not love," Sherlock says. "It's... attachment. Being in love. How it makes you vulnerable, weak, exposed, stupid."

"You want to experience this why exactly?" John rubs a towel through his hair. His bathrobe is tied firmly around the waist and pulled right up to the neck, Sherlock notices.

"Because I never have before."

"Well, I'd be prepared to bet money that whatever does it for you, isn't any of the things that do it for most people." John gazes at Sherlock. "In fact the only kind of person I can imagine you getting the hots for, is someone like you. Oh, and they would have to be not interested, really not into you at all, make it a proper challenge."

John slides off the sofa and heads for the kitchen. "Midnight snack time... We actually have food in, what do you want?"

"Something new," Sherlock says. He scowls at the ceiling. He turns his head to watch John burrowing in the fridge. His eyebrows rise. "Someone really not into me, you say?"

He can almost hear John counting to ten.

"No, Sherlock. Just - No."

Sherlock smiles and settles his hands behind his head. "Oh, you know how I love a challenge."

Fridge door slam. "I am going. To bed. Alone!"

The sound of Sherlock's laughter fills the flat. New experience or not, winding John up always makes the world a gladder place.


	5. Service provider

It was mid morning and Baker Street was peaceful. Mrs Hudson could be heard hoovering downstairs. John sat at the table, typing at his Mac Air, and Sherlock, wrapped in a red silk dressing gown, was stretched out on the settee, reading.

The clock ticked.

Sherlock sat up. There was a rustle of pages as he cast aside the journal. It landed by John's feet. "I'm missing something," Sherlock said with great irritation.

John looked up. "What, the case? Missing what? I thought you'd solved it."

"No, not the case." Sherlock stood up and paced around. "Something in life. Something which everyone else understands without even thinking about it - especially without thinking about it - and which I simply do not get."

John closed the laptop slowly, turned to face Sherlock fully.

"Even the most unappealing and inbred individuals in Europe have managed to find love. And now they're inviting us into their beautiful homes to brag about it."

John wrinkled his nose. "What is that you're reading?" He bent and picked it up. "Hello Magazine!"

Sherlock looked slightly abashed. "-It's Mrs Hudson's."

John tossed it aside. "I don't think Hello Magazine is going to help you fathom out the depths of the human heart. Especially not yours." He grimaced. "Sorry."

Sherlock sighed, pulled the collar of the dressing gown up around his neck, and sat back down on the settee. "It's beginning to annoy me, John. I know that it doesn't matter, that love is irrelevant and ultimately driven by chemical impulses in order to continue the species, and yet there is a large body of evidence to suggest that it brings benefits. I want those benefits. I just don't know where to begin. John, tell me. You know about all this ..." Sherlock wriggled his fingers in distaste. "...stuff."

John groaned. "Not this again."

"I mean, how can it be that you understand how all this works, while I, undoubtedly the superior mind, do not? It's impossible!" Sherlock scowled, but John could see his fragility. This was really starting to get to him.

He hesitated. Took a breath to speak. Stopped and then started again. "Sherlock, maybe you should consider... A professional. I don't mean a hooker. I mean someone high class. Someone who can do .. whatever you want. Then maybe you can stop obsessing about this love thing, and we can all move on."

Silence.

Sherlock sat poised on the edge of the settee, glaring at John.

John gazed back. He knew when Sherlock was truly angry, and this was not it. He waited it out.

Sherlock pressed his fingertips together. "Hmm, actually not a bad idea."

"I mean, those people are expensive. But you'd want total discretion. And total... Um, skill."

Sherlock looked up at John. He knew they were both thinking of the same person ... A woman wearing Sherlock's black coat, and red lipstick, and nothing else.

John broke the silence first. "Do you... Know anybody like that?" he asked.

"No. But I know a man who does." Sherlock slid his phone out of his jacket inside pocket, dialled. "Yes. David. I'm well, and you? Of course, the economy."

Sherlock rolled his eyes and made blah, blah, blah faces at John as the voice on the phone talked on. "Yes, actually there was. I wonder if you could send Charlie round? I have a use for his special services." A pause. "Or any of his boys will do." John's eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. "Great, thanks, let's catch up on that other thing soon."

"Charlie," said John warily as Sherlock flung away the phone. "That had better not be a drugs reference."

"John! You know me better than that. Charlie is someone who can help me with my project. Special skills. like you said. And of course, given his employer, absolute discretion too."

"His employer. Was that -"

"He ran the utterly pathetic Cluedo Club at university. Now he runs the country. Plus ca change and all that. Anyway, they'll be here in a minute, must be off." Sherlock darted into his bedroom and could be heard wrenching open drawers.

Too late, John began to have doubts. He went to Sherlock's door and called through. "Sherlock... are you sure you know what you're doing? I mean, I know I suggested this but... what is it exactly you expect this Charlie to do?"

"Exactly?"

"Maybe not exactly."

"No need for blushes, John. I'll tell you exactly what Charlie will do. He will send a car to come and get me. And then he will identify a service provider."

"Oh." John puffed out his cheeks in relief. "Service provider. Sounds a bit clinical."

"Clinical is perfect." Sherlock strode back into the living room, snatched up his coat and threw it around his shoulders.

"Yes," John said as Sherlock bounded down the stairs. "I imagine it would be."


	6. Secret fortress

A cream and brown hotel suite, in a building hidden away down a cobbled side street in Mayfair. Mews. They still existed, in London, and unlike the days when all they housed were horses, property in these back alleys now commanded a very high price.

Sherlock cast his gaze around the suite.

Dark brown painted ceilings, hidden halogen lighting around the cornicing, thick carpet, gilded faux Louis XIV furniture. In here, the lounge area, two sofas and a selection of delicate tables, a marble fireplace filled with a dried flower arrangement. Two brimming champagne flutes and a bottle on the marble mantelpiece. Through an arch, a large white bed, under a dramatic lowered ceiling.

His gaze swept over the woman. He had not specified a female, so the fact that this was Charlie's selection was interesting. Or perhaps merely a sign of Charlie's lack of imagination.

Her clothes were expensive, shirt by Belstaff, trousers probably Ralph Lauren. Her shoes were cream, mid heeled sandals, and her toenails were professionally pedicured and painted a dull silvery grey. Sherlock imagined that the rest of her was similarly precision-groomed.

Sherlock took off his coat and lay it over the back of the nearest sofa. After a moment's calculating look at the woman who stood before him , wearing a simple grey silk shirt and draped grey trousers, he unbuttoned his jacket, one handed, and shrugged that off too. He placed it on top of his coat.

This woman was different. Sherlock ignored his own mocking question... different to what, to whom? This woman had light brown hair, cut to collar length, and while she wore make up in a standard configuration - red lips, lashes curled and mascara-ed, fine layer of foundation smoothing the small blemishes, of which there were four - she gave off an air of business instead of pleasure. She looked as if she was about to walk into a meeting of top lawyers, or doctors.

Sherlock guessed her age to be thirty one or thirty two. Old enough to have started taking extra care with the make up around the eyes. Young enough to for the lips still to be plump and unpinched.

"Welcome, Mr Holmes."

He gave an upwards nod of acknowledgement.

"You can call me -"

"I'd rather no names," he said quickly. "It makes things - simpler."

"Just as you like. I was going to suggest that you call me...Sunday."

"Like the ice cream?"

"Like the day of the week in which many people relax, forget about work, and indulge themselves in any way that pleases them." She smiled, and held out her hand. Sherlock shook it. Her palm was warm and dry, and she had a firm grip. He drew his hand back, feeling rather strange.

He still hadn't moved from the spot on the carpet where he first came to rest.

The woman showed no signs of noticing his awkwardness - his nervousness, he realised, and in that moment, he identified the strange feeling he was experiencing: he felt young.

"I'm not paying for it."

The words left his lips before he could censor them. He frowned. Of course he was paying for it, or rather, he was calling in a favour to pay for it.

The woman spoke. Her voice was calm and low, well spoken but not public school. "Nobody pays for 'it', Mr Holmes. 'It' can be had anywhere, any time, for the price of a drink and a small drop in standards."

She glanced over him. Sherlock felt her gaze travel over his face, chest, legs... returning deliberately, provocatively, to his groin. She raised her eyes to his and smiled. "I'd say you could get 'it' in about five seconds if you walked out of this room now and sat in the bar with a drink and a pensive look."

She gave a small smile of appreciation. "No, Mr Holmes, what people pay for is their fantasy of 'it.' And it mostly doesn't centre on sex."

Sherlock considered this. "Really? I mean, I've read that people pay prostitutes for conversation..."

She lowered her eyelashes, once, at the word prostitute.

Sherlock stopped. "If not that, then what? I use the term as a description, not an insult."

"I am not insulted, and I don't want to descend into a discussion on semantics... but that word has a tendency to shatter the illusion I try to build for my clients."

"Maybe I'd quite like a discussion about semantics. Maybe that's the conversation I'm paying you to have."  
"You can get that at home. You're here for something your home life can't provide."

"All right then. The fantasy of 'it'. What do I do?"

She laughed, picked up the champagne flutes and handed one to him. "Drink this - and relax."

Sherlock took it suspiciously, sniffed it. "What if you're going to drug me?"

"Please. This affected paranoia is just another distraction. I will be paid anyway, as your interesting friend made clear, so why would I need to knock you out?"

"Some people enjoy it..." Sherlock remembered another room, another elegantly coiffed woman. "And to avoid having to do it."

"Oh, but it's not me who wants to avoid doing it, is it? I'm starting to get a picture of what your home life is missing."

Sherlock took the glass, sipped the champagne. It was excellent. He hesitated to ask again about the fantasy, although this idea was very interesting. He forced himself to be silent, instead, to wait and allow her the next move.

"So... What do you like?" Sunday asked. She stood holding her drink. perfectly relaxed, limbs loose and open, fingers holding the flute like the stem of a flower.

"Nothing. I like nothing, this is my -" Sherlock gestured impatiently "- my problem."

She nodded acceptance. "Nothing. I think... it is an unusual request, but I think I can give you 'nothing', Mr Holmes."

Sherlock felt an odd sensation in his stomach. More nerves. And something, some secret fortress within him, preparing to give way.


	7. Empty vessel

Sherlock, jacket off, lay on the larger of the cream sofas in the serene hotel suite, his head resting on his companion's lap. He couldn't bring himself to use the ridiculous name she had suggested. Why did she need a name?

"I feel stupid," he complained.

She said nothing, but looked down at him with great kindness.

"Tell me the point of this," instructed Sherlock.

She smiled. Continued to gaze at him. "You are very beautiful."

"Irrelevant."

"You are very intelligent."

"All right. Relevant."

"You have a nearly perfect body."

"Irrelevant, again."

"And a rather imperfect mind."

Sherlock paused before answering. "There is no such thing as a perfect mind. "

She shook her head and went on, "But you don't care about your body. It is merely the ..." She opened the fingers of one graceful hand.

"Container," said Sherlock. His feet, still in his Loakes, met the arm of the sofa at the far end. His head was cushioned by grey silk.

"And you place your mind at the centre of everything."

He made a small sound of agreement. She didn't smell of anything, he noticed. No fragrance, body lotion, deodorant, not even soap. She simply was. He inhaled through his nose. Even her clothes held no detergent. She was an olfactory blank.

"But neither body nor mind provide what you are looking for here," she said gently.

He looked at her. She touched his forehead softly. He kept still, very still.

"Tell me," she said. "Tell me what you long for."

"Nothing," he said again.

She nodded seriously. Touched his lower lip delicately, lifted her hand away again. "When you long for nothing it can be that you feel you have nothing, are nothing."

"No," said Sherlock, frowning. "I am not nothing."

She smiled a knowing smile, lay her hand lightly on his chest. "I am empty," she said. "I will be your nothing, and you will fill me up."

His eyes defocused, refocused on the bubbles rising in the half empty champagne flutes on the mantel. The bubbles rose and rose endlessly, and though each dissipated at the surface and was gone, there were aways more. His mind, he thought then. Himself. There was no end, there was always more.

His lips moved but it took a moment for the voice to follow. When it did, it was the voice of his younger self, a shaky whisper. And all he said was, "Ok."


	8. Loosen up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: This is just a standalone scene which could take place anywhere in the story. I liked the idea of Sherlock disagreeing with his NY counterpart about sex, as the two men are so different, and yet so alike in other ways. Anyway, hope you liked it. Any suggestions welcome for this series of drabbles, which is seeming to come together into a kind of coherent whole. Next chapter imminent, with a revelation for John. Please excuse and tell me if any typos as I do all this on my phone!

Sherlock was sitting at the table in 221B Baker Street with John's Mac Air, looking at the blog comments on the most recent case. And he was frowning. "Idiot," he said aloud. "How do I delete this?"

John arrived with coffee in mismatched mugs. Sherlock's had the name of a safe manufacturer on it. John's said, World's Best Girlfriend. "You don't delete anything," he told Sherlock. "Remember - my blog?"

He elbowed Sherlock to budge up and Sherlock grudgingly obliged.

"What's the comment, anyway?" John asked.

Sherlock read aloud in a deeply sarcastic tone. "The onyx necklace was always a red herring and the case could have been solved quickly if you hadn't spent so much time on trying to find its owner. . I think you're starting to show your age, old boy. John, tell Sherlock he needs to have more sex, it will loosen him up. I find even the trickiest cases just fall into place when I maintain a healthy level of sexual activity."

The entry was signed, SH.

"You know him, I take it? Who is he?"

"An idiot. " Sherlock glared at the screen. "I work with him on international cases sometimes. He's British, but based in New York now and supposedly assists the police department there. He is occasionally useful to me, but mostly deeply irritating."

"He's certainly pushed your buttons," John observed. "I can delete it if you want. It is a bit personal."

"No, don't give him the satisfaction. I'll email him my reasoning with regards to the onyx necklace, should shut him up." Sherlock smiled nastily.

"And what about your reasoning with regards to the other thing? It's pretty offensive."

"Yes, he is as usual bringing down the tone of the blog comments."

John raised his eyebrows. "Er, no, not really."

"What do you mean?" Sherlock's gaze shot from the screen to John's face.

"I delete about a hundred salacious comments every morning before you're up. You get a lot of offers, you know. Not ones I'd advise you to take up, mind you." John clinked his mug against Sherlock's, which stood untouched on the table. "You're welcome."

"Offers."

"Yes, some of them very detailed. I have to say it doesn't always make the best breakfast reading."

"People read your blog and want to ... sleep with me." Sherlock curled his lip.

"Sherlock, surely this is not news to you." John indicated the papers, which today featured a zoom lens shot of Sherlock in his purple shirt, sitting outside a cafe looking at his phone with a slightly anxious expression. The back of John's head was also visible, the shot being taken over John's shoulder. The caption read, "Love troubles? Looks like Sherlock hasn't got the text he was hoping for."

"This is your fault. You must be making me sound... attractive." Sherlock was aggrieved.

John laughed. "You're the only person I know who would complain about that." He gave Sherlock a sideways glance. "And I just write the way you are. There's no accounting for taste."

"Do you get these comments as well?"

John shrugged. "Of course. Not as many as you. But I have a certain loyal following." He smiled modestly.

"Bizarre," muttered Sherlock gracelessly.

John sighed and returned to his blog.


	9. Experience

John climbed the stairs, front door key in hand. Sherlock was in - John had seen the living room light on - and with any luck he, like John, would be in the mood for a curry and a spot of telly. That new BBC thing was starting tonight, and it would be nice to just chill out and watch the box after a long day, especially if Sherlock could switch off his outer critic for a minute.

John lifted his hand to the flat's front door, and froze. Sherlock had company. A woman was speaking.

"Let's get down to the physical stuff."

Oooh, maybe not. John spun round and took a step towards the stairs.

The woman's voice again, low and seductive. "Are you a virgin, Mr Holmes?"

Sherlock, calm but brief: "No."

John hesitated.

"Have you had many lovers?"

A small pause, then Sherlock's answer: "Yes."

John could not have moved if he tried. Oh aye, really? Sherlock?

"Male or female?"

A smile in Sherlock's voice as he replied. "Yes, they were. "

"Tell me about them."

"Is this about my sexual history or your curiosity? As if it wasn't obvious. Well, you're out of luck and out of time, I'm afraid. John, I know you're there, please stop dithering and just come in."

John pushed open the door and saw Sherlock lying on the sofa, fully clothed, thank God, with his head resting in the lap of an also completely dressed blonde woman, who was stroking his hair. They both turned their heads to look at John and the woman gave him a warm smile in greeting.

She was stunning. Large pale blue eyes, creamy skin, plenty of curves and a self contained air which reminded John of Sherlock himself.

John grinned back as Sherlock returned to staring up at the ceiling.

"Don't get your hopes up, John," he said drily. "She's very, very expensive."

"Professionally, yes," agreed the woman. "On a personal level I'm far more reasonable. Doctors don't spend all their time with patients, after all. My own ... work ... is no different." She was laughing at him with her eyes, those incredible eyes.

Sherlock chuckled too and to John's amazement lifted his hand and tapped his companion gently on the jawbone. "Oh, stop it," he said. "It's time for you to go."

"If I must. I'll call you." Sherlock sat up, and the woman stood. "Lovely to meet you, Dr Watson. He often talks of you." She bent and kissed the top of Sherlock's head as he batted her away. "Goodbye."

She picked up a small handbag and walked to the door, hips swaying in her cream trouser suit, and was gone.

John looked at Sherlock. He had yet to say one word.

"Learn something surprising, did you John?" Sherlock smiled what John thought of as his smartarse smile, a catlike thing with a world of smug superiority in its sardonic twist.

"You could say." John sat down at the table.

"Is there anything you want to ask me?" Sherlock held his phone and now began passing it from hand to hand, a faraway look on his face.

"No. I didn't want to know!"

"Yes, you did. You've always wondered. If you'd asked I would have just told you. It doesn't embarrass me." The phone was snapped up by Sherlock's right hand, his long fingers curling around it.

"Sherlock, I was never going to ask that question. "

"Fine, have it your way."

Sherlock dropped back onto the sofa and began fiddling with his phone.

"She's quite something," John offered then, picturing the blonde again. "I take it she is your ... service provider?"

"I'm not paying her," Sherlock said.

"Sherlock, your arrangements are your own business. And it was all my idea, remember?"

"She's taken me on as her personal project," Sherlock said carelessly, swiping through files in his phone.

"She must like you." John put his head to one side. "Do you like her?"

Sherlock paused mid-swipe. When he spoke it was in surprise. "Yes," he said, "I do."

John absorbed this. "Well," he said. "I guess that scuppers my chances then. Fancy an Indian?"

"Oh please. Don't hang back on my account. She seemed rather interested in you too."

"Oh no, no way. Firstly, dating a mate's girlfriend is pretty close to the top of the list of stupidest things you can do, and secondly... "

John stopped. "There is no secondly," he said.

"Curry would be fine, yes," Sherlock said. He was watching John, with that dark look which told of many calculations being made. Not, presumably, about curry.

"Right. Let me just dump my coat."

In his bedroom, John dropped his coat on the armchair and then stood, leaning his back on the door.

It was happening, then, finally. Sherlock and someone, a woman as it turned out. And the issue that John had always assumed was the issue had, it, seemed, been resolved long ago, and many times too.

Sherlock was finally finding whatever it was that he had been looking for. And John was not sure what he felt about that.


	10. A citrus scent

John approached the steps up to 221B's front door with dread.

This was not right. This was his home.

But still, he was not relishing the idea of coming back and finding Sherlock once more deep in conversation with the service provider woman. She had never introduced herself, and Sherlock had said only, "Why does she need a name?"

"Because she's a person," John said. "With feelings."

"I don't pay her to have feelings," Sherlock said callously, and continued to read Le Monde.

"You keep saying you don't pay her at all," John pointed out.

"Nevertheless. It is a business arrangement and I am the client." He flicked the paper dismissively.

"One of her favourites, I bet. The one who doesn't even acknowledge her name."

Sherlock had glanced at him with amusement. "Are you jealous, John?" He did not specify, of whom.

"Don't be stupid. It's just a courtesy thing."

And then Sherlock had lowered the paper to look at him with that contemplative dark gaze, and John had given up and gone out.

Now, John hesitated. Would Sherlock be with... whatever her name was...or worse, would the flat be empty?

Twice this week already Sherlock had arrived home at dawn, hair damp and unruly, the back of his Belstaff coat soaked. He offered no explanation and John didn't ask.

Sherlock did say the first time, "Have you sat there all night?" upon finding John upright on the living room sofa, a blanket draped over his striped jumper, reading an old case file.

"Yes," John said.

"Not necessary," said Sherlock, and went into his room and shut the door.

And that was it.

Not tonight, John thought. No way was he going to sit at home like some desperate loser, waiting for Sherlock to get home safely. There had been no signs that Sherlock was in danger - either from drugs, or this woman. Quite the reverse. He seemed cheerful, playful, hugely engaged.

It was John who sat alone and isolated.

Of course, it might not be the woman who was occupying Sherlock's time. It might be a case that Sherlock was working on without John.

Actually, that idea hurt more.

John spun round at the top of the steps, and jogged back down onto the street. He was young - youngish - free and single. There was company and comfort to be found in this city, even if none of it was at home.

He did not glance up to see if Sherlock was watching from the window.

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"John - John Watson?"

His name, called uncertainly across the heads of the crowd in his usual pub in Camden, a big place which frequently had live music and always had a noisy clientele.

John looked around fuzzily, head full of beer and bitter reflections.

The blonde woman, that no name service provider woman, was standing next to him at the bar.

She gave him a radiant smile.

John looked around for Sherlock.

"He's not here," she said. "Said he was going out. Working on something."

"Right." John nodded neutrally. The last thing he felt like right now was a chat with this woman.

"Can I get you a drink?" she asked, reaching for her purse. She was dressed far less formally tonight, in a soft large-check shirt, black fitted jeans and black strappy sandals. The creamy skin and beautiful eyes were still in evidence, though, and as she stood beside him John became aware of her perfume, a light citrus scent which wafted from her...cleavage.

He moved his gaze firmly to her face. "I don't even know your name. Your real name," he added.

"Theresa," she said, and held out her hand to shake his.

There was nothing of the businesslike about her here, in this glazed-tile pub, surrounded by happy punters waiting to hear the band.

John shook her hand. "John," he said. "But you know that already. You probably know all about me."

"Only what Sherlock has said, and that, I'm afraid, I can't repeat. What are you having?"

Drinks in hand, John led her through the crowd to the terrace round the back, and they perched on a picnic bench close to the patio heaters.

They clinked glasses and sipped. John could think of no opening gambits, and kept getting tantalising drifts of lemony scent.

Theresa smiled at him. "I'm glad I spotted you. I was meant to meet a friend here, but she's not going to make it. Are you here on your own?"

"Yeah."

"The band are ok. I saw them a couple of months back."

"Right. Great."

She reached out and touched his hand where it held his pint. "I'm sorry," she said.

"What's that?"

"I said, I'm sorry. You must feel like I've barged in on your life with Sherlock and stuck my oar right into your friendship."

She was gazing at him calmly but with a slight sadness which only made her eyes more startling. John had never seen eyes so blue. No. They were grey. -It depended on the light.

He let his shoulders drop. "A bit," he admitted. "I haven't seen much of Sherlock since he started seeing you."

She laughed. "You do know my relationship with him is purely professional, don't you?"

"I don't know anything," John told her, "and this whole business was my idea."

Theresa sighed lightly. "So that's why he's doing it." She caught herself. "Sorry. Doctor patient confidentiality."

"You're a doctor?" John gawped at her.

She smiled. "A service was identified. I am the provider."

John sipped his drink and pondered this for a while. That piece of news had an unpleasant whiff of Mycroft about it.

He decided to ignore it. "So, is Sherlock OK? As one doctor to another."

"What do you think?"

John grimaced. "He's impossible to read unless he wants to be read."

"That's my experience, yes. Why did you ask if he was ok? "

"Just..." John felt like a louse for even mentioning such a personal thing, but still: "He's become obsessed with learning about love. He thinks it's going to bring him benefits, give him some kind of advantage if he has experienced it."

In for a penny, in for a pound. John took a breath, then said, "That's what made me suggest seeing a - professional."

"I see."

Her eyes were twinkling. "No wonder you've been so uncomfortable around me."

"Does Sherlock know you're a doctor?"

"I'm sure he would if he thought about it, yes, but he has designated me only as his empty vessel to fill, to help him... to help him."

John knew a little about this area of psychology. "To help him feel less empty."

"Yes."

The idea that Sherlock felt empty tore at John's heart.

"That upsets you," Theresa said. "I think you feel empty sometimes too. That's why it works so well, your friendship." Her hand was still resting over his, John noticed.

"Thank you for not assuming we're sleeping together."

"Let me tell you something," she said. I" didn't have an appointment with Sherlock tonight. But when I heard from him that you weren't back yet, I came here hoping to run into you."

"Me?"

She let her fingers move across the back of his hand, and he did not protest. "Ever since I first saw you I've hoped we could meet up. -You've just got such a nice face."

And there he was, hoping she might mention his fabulous body. But still. "So have you," he said truthfully. "Your eyes are... stunning."

They exchanged smiles over the rims of their drinks.

There was a roar from the crowd and inside the pub, the band started up: the unmistakable opening chords of Motorcycle Emptiness.

"Takes me back," said John, craning his neck to get a look.

"To a good time?"

"I was in the army, loads of mates, good pay and plenty of, ah, opportunities. Yeah, it was a very good time." It came out more wistful than he'd meant.

Theresa smiled broadly. "Shall we go in?"

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They stood outside the pub as it emptied out at closing time. John hesitated on the pavement, the raucous crowd flowing around them.

Theresa stepped closer to him and said, "Thanks for a great evening, John." She gave him a warm hug, then lingered, arms still wrapped round his waist.

There could be no doubt. She turned her face up to him. John slid his arms round her and bent to kiss her. She gripped him tightly then, and returned his kiss with such passion that he wobbled. They broke apart, laughing

"Whew," John said. "Snogging in the street. I'm fifteen again."

Someone whistled at them as he kissed her again more deeply, his hands travelling over her shoulders and into the small of her back. She followed suit, caressing the nape of his neck and slipping one hand into the back pocket of his jeans. His skin tingled deliciously.

"Get a room," said one of the punters coming out of the pub.

"That's not a terrible idea," Theresa said, tracing John's jawline with one finger.

John squeezed her. "I'm seriously tempted, but I'm not a first date kind of guy."

She gave a wicked laugh. "You do know that only makes you more appealing."

"Yup." She was running her fingers lightly over his back, inside his shirt."You know what they say: make 'em laugh, make 'em cry, make 'em wait."

"You devil you. Let's share a cab, I can drop you off."

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When they reached Baker Street the windows of the flat were dark. John looked at his phone. Nothing from Sherlock. "D'you wanna come in for a coffee?" he asked.

"Yes please. " Her hand had been on his inner thigh since Euston.

They did at least make it as far as switching on the lights and putting the kettle on, John reflected as ten minutes later he lay on the sofa with Theresa still clenched in an embrace which had lasted since he went to get the cups out. Now he was unbuttoning her shirt as she fumbled with his belt.

"We should go to my room," he mumbled, his face in her neck.

"Ok," she said, making no attempt to sit up, or stop undoing his jeans.

The front door opened. "John, I've seen the most remarkable -"

Sherlock stopped dead, his coat-tails swirling around him. His face registered shock, then immediately, nothing.

John winced and scrabbled to sit upright. "Sherlock -"

Theresa started fastening her shirt.

"I didn't mean to interrupt," said Sherlock. His face was dark but his tone was completely neutral. "I'm going to bed. Goodnight."

He swept across the lounge and into his room, slamming the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: Empty vessel -I have just invented this psychological practice so any real doctors out there, please bear with me - it is nonsense!


	11. They're all wrong

Baker Street in darkness. Sherlock had been sitting in the window all day with his back to the room, saying nothing. John said "Good morning," before leaving for work, and Sherlock gave him no reply. John shrugged and left. Later, much later, John came in from the surgery and ate dinner and sat in the armchair and read his book and did not say anything. It became a battle of silence.

When night fell, neither of them would move to switch on the lights.

And so it was silent and dark.

Sherlock moved at last, stretched his legs and stood, still looking out of the window.

He heard John look up. Sherlock kept himself a deliberate silhouette in the window, the streetlights in front of him, the dark flat behind.

"I won't be seeing her again." Sherlock spoke. He did not say her name but they each understood.

"If it means anything - neither will I." John's voice cracked. Too long without speaking, the voice dries up, or more accurately, the mouth and throat do. Also when asleep. Silence like sleep. Visions and dreams pass before your eyes when you are truly silent.

He cannot be silent, never really quiet and still. His mind races with dreams and ideas when asleep and only the oblivion of utter exhaustion gives any relief from this. And this has been a good way to live... brain always on, the rest attached as flesh which needed feeding and grooming. But lately... Perhaps it is his age ... These thoughts of love and nothingness have become intrusive.

He had not answered John, and now could not pick up the thread.

What else to say? Perhaps this: "She was helping me feel better. And then she betrayed me. With you."

Outside the street lights glow relentlessly. Their light turns everything to beige, and now John was speaking.

"I didn't know you needed to feel better - that there was something wrong."

"Well, now you do." Sherlock watched the beige spread across the window pane...

Long pause. John's soft sigh. "There's nothing wrong with you."

Sherlock spun round. "Of course there is! Everyone knows there is. There always has been. Only you don't see it, John."

Steadfastly: "Well, I'm happy not to. They're all wrong."

Silence. Sherlock breathed through his mouth. Thought he might pass out. He had not eaten today, possibly, yesterday. His mind had supplied the motivation to keep going even as his body used up its last reserves.

"I don't feel very -"

The room was tinged with beige, turning to red. Then black closed in around the edges. He was fainting. He knew it and thought, I hope I don't concuss myself, as he dropped to the carpet.

When he opened his eyes, John was kneeling beside him on the floor, holding his wrist. For a while it was odd, that John should be bent down next to him holding his wrist, and then gradually he understood: John was taking his pulse. But the look on John's face spoke of more concerns than just counting the beats per minute.

"Stay still," he said calmly as Sherlock tried to get up. "Just stay where you are for a minute." He laid his free hand on Sherlock's chest and Sherlock subsided. "Have you eaten today?"

"No," Sherlock said. He felt like a sulky child. Have you eaten up all your dinner? ... But then, if you don't eat up all your dinner, and carry on roaming round as if you have, eventually you faint and look completely stupid in front of John.

John ran his fingers over Sherlock's scalp, assessing every part with medical thoroughness. Sherlock closed his eyes and let John's methodical calm wash over him in a wave of cool whiteness. It was important in a doctor, he thought vaguely, to have the kind of hands that calmed people down. Agitated hands would be worse than useless...

John ran his hand down to Sherlock's jaw, felt the pulse in the soft tissue of his neck. Gave a small nod. Apparently, Sherlock was good to go. "Right. We're going to get some food. I would make you something, but as usual there's nothing in."

Sherlock lay still for a moment or two. His head hurt. All day thinking about this wretched nothing business, and the woman with the ridiculous name. Time better spent on other things and yet there was a puzzle here, a puzzle that was inside him, a puzzle he thought he had been starting to unravel. His head hurt and his body had just given him a very clear signal that while it could tolerate a great deal when working on a case, it was not up to punishment on an emotional level.

"Sherlock? Can you hear me?"

Sherlock sat up, tentatively.

"God you scared me," said John. He was as matter of fact as ever. He got to his feet, awkwardly, and offered Sherlock his hand. "Come on. And please... can we just drop that other business? I'm not very proud of myself."

Sherlock looked away. It was not John's fault.

"Fine," said John, "I won't say anything else. Come on, let's get some food into you. What d'you fancy?"

"Nothing," said Sherlock. It was true. He took a breath, carefully sighed it out and added, "I don't care about that woman. Sleep with her if you want to." He waited to see if John would notice the question in his sentence construction.

"I don't want to," said John.

He had heard it, then.

"Liar. And a terrible liar too." He gave John a smile. John smiled back with relief clear in his forehead.

"I'm still not going to see her again."

It was not John's fault, Sherlock affirmed as they went down the stairs, John going first in case Sherlock should topple. No: it was quite clear whose fault this was.

Mycroft's.


	12. Solid state

_I want to see him._

_I don't want to see him. I need to see him. For the sake of my sanity, I need to know the answer._

Sherlock closed his eyes. Annoying in the extreme to have to ask for an answer, like an idiot, like, like, an ordinary person.

But Mycroft knew.

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The club was on Pall Mall in one of the cream painted Nash buildings close to the Ritz. It was a place of hushed halls and deferential staff, where talking, in fact noise of any kind was discouraged for the sake of its invariably illustrious members. Sherlock clattered along the marble hallway to Mycroft's private reading room, but waited for the steward to close the door on him before speaking.

Mycroft was leaning back in a damask upholstered armchair, papers in his lap, a fountain pen in his hand. A gilded table nearby held a loaded tea tray.

"Mycroft. I am a grown man.I am approaching my fortieth birthday. Isn't it time you stopped interfering in my life?"

Mycroft eyed him with a mocking smile and lay aside the sheaf of papers he had been signing. There was an elaborate crest on the top sheet. Sherlock rolled his eyes at it.

"Milestones, dear brother? Really? You?" said Mycroft.

Pause. Sherlock looked resentfully at Mycroft.

"Should I put a plastic banner across the front of 221b? Happy Fortieth Sherlock, with a blurrily enlarged picture of an endearing toddler? Not you, obviously, an endearing toddler."

"Shut up, Mycroft. This is not funny."

"Oh but it is. You see I came to terms with what I am many years ago. But you still struggle. Still want to be... like all the rest."

"I am not like all the rest. You know I don't want that." Sherlock remained standing as Mycroft poured them each some tea.

"That's right. You can never be like ordinary people, Sherlock, neither of us can. But still you long for something. Something you think the lesser beings around you understand, but you cannot."

Mycroft had put his finger exactly on the problem, as usual.

It was highly irritating.

"You set me up with - " He did not know her name and would not use the soubriquet.

"Theresa."

"Yes."

"I regret to say I did not. You did that all by yourself. I found out about it, though."

"Of course, and then when you realised she was actually... changing me.. you set out to wreck it."

"Why would I do that? Why would I want to prevent my younger brother feeling all better about himself?"

"Because you're you."

"There is that, of course."

"So why? You sent Theresa after John. To seduce him."

"Not to seduce him, actually."

"What then?"

Mycroft gestured to Sherlock to sit down, and at last he did, still pointedly ignoring the proffered tea."If you must know, to bring him on board. He was getting rather resentful about the young lady, and I worried that he would ... Leave."

_What?_

"What are you talking about?"

"He was jealous, Sherlock."

Mycroft let this hang in the air. He twirled his teaspoon idly round and round in his fingers, his long fingers which were so similar to Sherlock's own. He was always in motion, always fiddling or twirling or tapping, as if the same endless energy which drove Sherlock powered him. But Sherlock knew that at its heart was not pure nervous energy but a silent and still well of fuel drawn mostly from the discomfort of other people.

Solid state. That was Mycroft.

John, jealous. A mental recap of the previous two weeks' interactions with John. Perhaps he had been less... present than usual. But the idea that he was jealous was -

Ridiculous. New. Somewhat flattering. Distracting. Irrelevant. Distracting. A ploy to get under Sherlock's skin, and it had worked, as it always did.

"I'm not sleeping with him, you know," he said, hoping to turn Mycroft aside.

"Maybe you should." Raised eyebrows, irritating smirk number seventeen.

"Shut up, Mycroft."

"I gather you were something of a rake in your youth. I must say I was surprised by that when Theresa told me. I almost spilled my tea."

"That was private!" How much else did Mycroft know? How did he dare? Sherlock bit down fury and sat very still, the deliberate opposite of his brother's affected whimsy.

Mycroft had no doubt, in anything he did. That rock solid certainty allowed him total confidence.

_That used to be me_ , Sherlock thought.

Mycroft smirked as if he knew what Sherlock was thinking.

_Where can I find such certainty again?_

He took this question and buried it deep for retrieval later.

"Bye Mycroft. Horrid to see you."

"You too."  
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Sherlock stood on the street outside Mycroft's club, feeling even more violated than usual.

John and Theresa on the sofa, hands inside each other's clothes. Purely lust. Irrelevant.

Mycroft intervening to keep John st Sherlock's side ... suspicious. Probably relevant.

He took out his phone and texted John. "Dinner?"

A message back immediately. "Am already out. The Greek place. You can join us. A mutual friend, he claims."

Even more suspicious. "Lovely. See you soon."

Suspicious.


	13. Idiot and Loser

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: I could not resist this slightly gratuitous not-quite -crossover scene. The previous meeting between Sherlock and the dark haired woman took place in my also not-quite-crossover story A Long Way Down.
> 
> Hope you enjoy the fun, anyway.

The Greek cafe was busy but John had a table in the window, overlooking the street of pubs, other cafes and restaurants, and the numerous graphic design studios found in this part of the city. The room was full of noisy chatter, and delicious cooking smells wafted out with every swing of the kitchen doors.

John's companion was a wiry man in his early forties with large hazel eyes and an expressive mouth, wearing a check shirt open over a T shirt with I am not lucky, I am good printed on it. He wore faded black jeans and was presently devouring a plate of grilled meats with his fingers, talking through mouthfuls about his time in London and glancing around ceaselessly as if cataloguing every movement in the room. Or waiting for his parole officer to find him.

John had found him pleasant, if tiring, company. He had not yet discovered his connection to Sherlock.

"Oh God. It's you."

Sherlock gave a sarcastic smile and dropped ungraciously into the free chair.

"Sherlock, this is - "

"I know who this is. What are you calling yourself today?"

"And it is delightful to see you too. John knows me as Clyde." Clyde rolled up his shirt sleeves, the better to delve into the food. John saw intricate tattoos on his muscled arms.

"And I know you as Idiot. John, this is the idiot."

"I know him as Loser, if that helps build the picture," added Clyde, helping himself to more lamb.

"Are you eating?" John asked Sherlock.

"Maybe later."

"Sherlock. You need to eat." John gave him a stare, aiming for stern medical but knowing that it would be interpreted by anyone present merely as fusspot.

Clyde smiled. "Ah, but John, that would detract from the wonderful feeling of superiority over bodily functions to which Loser is so attached."

John was unable to avoid a chuckle.

Clyde blew an air kiss at Sherlock."Give it up, live a little, have some chicken." He proffered a drumstick and Sherlock recoiled.

"Sherlock," said John warningly.

"Fine." Sherlock took a drumstick from the platter rather than from Clyde, and bit into it savagely.

"See," said Clyde, "Now you're getting it." He gave a nervous twitch and smirked at Sherlock, who glared back with a disgusted expression.

"What are you doing here?" demanded Sherlock.

"I received a letter in the mail. I assume it was meant for you. It's with my companion, who will be joining us shortly."

"How do you two know each other?" John asked. "Police work?"

There was a dark silence as the two other men looked at each other.

"Rehab," said Clyde.

"When I was getting clean," Sherlock said simultaneously.

"Oh." Another former addict.

"Also we used to tear up the town a little, didn't we?" Clyde's eyes glittered.

"No," said Sherlock.

"Mmn, yes, perhaps it was mainly me. Standing in a corner looking all mysterious and putting the girls off their Chardonnay was more your thing."

He turned to John. "Sometimes we help each other with cases. I give him a few pointers on the really tricky ones."

"Oh please," said Sherlock.

"I am a keen observer of the human condition," Clyde told John. "I believe you can deduce an enormous amount about a person's life and inclinations simply by observing them closely."

John glanced at Sherlock, who was rolling his eyes.

"Anyone can do it," Sherlock said. "It's very straightforward and not mysterious at all."

"True. For example, the woman standing on the street corner, there, sending a text message. What do you deduce about her?"

Clyde pointed. John and Sherlock looked out of the window. John saw a slim but curvaceous woman with sleek black hair and spike heels standing in the street texting. His eyes automatically travelled down her long legs and back up to to her face, which was in profile. Clyde's hungry gaze tracked his own.

"American," said Sherlock at once. "Designer clothes, but not new - used to have a better paid job than she does now. Large handbag, could be a fashion statement but it looks heavy - she's carrying round something ... maybe supplies for her children, though there's no wedding ring and her face does not show any of the sleep deprivation associated with parenthood. Her shoulders seem tense as she sends the text; whoever she's sending to is a cause for concern - again, not a child, perhaps someone she cares for as if for a child. Strong hands, precise movements in the phone - her job involves, or used to involve careful, important work with the hands. Surgeon," Sherlock concluded, "well paid, but gave it up to care for a relation or friend, someone adult but with serious enough problems to cause that frown."

"And what do you deduce about her, John?"

The woman turned towards them turned and John saw that she was very beautiful, with dark eyes and freckles across her fine cheekbones.

He looked at her face. "Beautiful and kind," he said.

"Bravo, John," said Clyde. "You were both pretty accurate as it turns out, but I prefer John's assessment." His phone beeped. He sent a reply with his thumb, and the woman opened the door of the Greek cafe and walked in, a study in unaffected grace.

John's eyes were wide.

Clyde grinned wickedly at him. "Yes, I know. Shame her job is to keep me on a leash." He mimed a noose around his neck. "Still, could be worse, eh?"

He turned to Sherlock. "How about you? Got a live in companion who makes you tea and wanders around the house in underwear providing pleasant distraction when you're trying to work?"

"Do not answer that," said John. Sherlock winked at him.

Clyde watched with calculating eyes.

She reached their table. "Hey," she said to Clyde, nodding at John.

"Hello," said John, but now she had eyes only for Sherlock.

Sherlock nodded at her.

"You know each other," said John.

"We met briefly," Sherlock said. All trace of petulance had disappeared. He rose and kissed her lightly on each cheek, taking her hand, holding her gaze.

"I'm glad you're here," she said in a low voice, and glancing at John gave him a smile of such sweetness and joy that John felt warm all over.

"Have you got the letter?" asked Clyde, somewhat brusquely.

She took an envelope from her bag and gave it to Sherlock. He put it in his jacket without looking at it.

She turned to Clyde with an expression of stern fondness. "We have to go. The boat won't wait."

"Indeed." Clyde stood, nodded at Sherlock and John. "Well, this has been, hasn't it. Good to meet you John, and I hope you lead him into very wicked ways indeed." John sighed.

"Bye now," said Sherlock with artificial cheer. He gave a little wave, waggling his fingers.

"Are you another brother?" John asked Clyde.

Both men laughed.

"Imagine," said Sherlock, shuddering.

"No," said Clyde.

He rose, and left, the woman smiling her goodbyes. As they walked out, John saw Clyde's hand snake round and take hers. She did not react, but her fingers curled round his.

"Idiot," said Sherlock. He glanced at John. "Home?"

"Yes."

All very well, John thought, but what was in the letter?


	14. The well in the circle

It is a letter from her. Old. Everything which reaches him from her is old, out of date, no longer relevant.

In his bedroom, Sherlock rips it open with an eager thumb. Scans it.

Another riddle. She enjoys these. He pretends not to.

This one gives him pause for a moment. He flings himself backwards onto his bed and stares at the ceiling. It is not her usual sort of puzzle. But he will solve it. He always does.

She might be dead by the time he finishes the riddle. Or already. Could have been dead for months, these letters and notes arriving from beyond the grave. He doesn't care. To him they are fresh and new, and if this one, or the next, is the last, well, he won't know, will never know.

Imagine her instead, living somewhere, wrecking lives and governments somewhere, creating havoc and breaking hearts. A much happier prospect.

John knocks at the door. "Are you ok? Want a cuppa?"

"No thanks."

John thinks he thinks she is on a witness protection programme somewhere in the States, except that John knows full well Sherlock was lying about accepting John's story about the protection thing, and that John was trying to tell him that she was dead. They each simply knew, in that silent way they have of understanding each other. It is a man thing. Saves needless discussion.

It is a them thing. He can't do it with anyone else. Usually it is him reading the minds, but John can read him too, perfectly clearly.

Irene's riddle this time is not a sexy teaser, the way they usually are. Generally her riddles resolve into lewd suggestions, which make them easier to solve, and provide a nostalgic chuckle.

This is more of a conundrum. He thinks she is telling him somewhere she has been, or will be, or wants to be. Or somewhere she wants him to be, perhaps. It would be like her sentimental attachment to him, to give him a puzzle about a place, simply to give herself the luxury of imagining him in that place.

**The well inside the pub inside the circle.**

It could be she has left a message at this place, which she could not send by post.

There are too many possibilities. He needs to identify the place.

"John! Can I borrow your laptop?"

"What's wrong with yours?"

"Too far away."

John appears in the doorway, carrying Sherlock's laptop. "Everything all right?"

He glances at the letter on the bed.

"Fine," says Sherlock. "Fancy a trip out tomorrow?"

"Sure," says John. "Where to?"

"Don't know yet. Might be overnight."

"Right-ho." John simply accepts this, as he does everything.

Sherlock takes the laptop off John with a grin. John rolls his eyes and claps Sherlock's shoulder.

On an impulse Sherlock touches John's hand as it lies on his shoulder. He rarely shows John any physical affection but at this moment is it the right thing to do. John gives him such a sweet smile in return that Sherlock is touched.

The moment lasts, and then Sherlock withdraws his hand, feeling the tingle where he touched John's skin.

"Night," says John softly, drawing the door shut behind him.

Sherlock drops back onto the bed, Irene's letter in his hand, wondering about wells and circles.

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"Avebury," says Sherlock, slamming the Land Rover door. "The only village in Britain to be built inside a Neolithic stone circle."

It is mid afternoon and the sun is low, the temperature dropping away towards dark. The village is a couple of streets awkwardly arranged around the field pattern, itself arranged around sequences of large grey stones.

John has the map. "There's a path between stone markers that runs all the way from here to Stonehenge."

"Afficionados of stone circles favour this over the Stonehenge site because here you can actually walk right up to the stones," Sherlock says, pulling on his gloves. "There's the pub."

"What's this about?" John asks.

Sherlock smiles. "A riddle sent by an old acquaintance. Someone likes to set me little challenges, and occasionally I indulge them by solving the puzzle."

"Irene," says John immediately. He is not remotely surprised.

Sherlock makes a non committal noise. "The pub apparently has a well inside."

"Right. Then what?"

"I don't know. Could be anything, given the riddle setter. Come on."

The road winds around the Red Lion pub and past a walled field dotted with standing stones taller than a man. An enormous stone, reaching almost to the roof, stands beside the pub.

Sherlock looks up at the eaves of the pub. There are lots of lights, floodlights. Cameras too.

The pub is open for tea. They order Wiltshire cream tea - really? does every county have a cream tea now? and enjoy the roaring fire.

"The museum is shut," John says, reading from a tourist leaflet cheaply printed in blue paper. He helps himself to extra jam for his scone. "Renovation."

"They had a break in," Sherlock says vaguely. "The Trust that runs them won't let them reopen without additional security."

"How do you know that?"

"The museum building looks old but is just a faux medieval structure to meet planning regulations. It doesn't need renovation."

"Oh."

"Where's the well?" Sherlock asks the publican who comes to take their empty plates.

He points. Sherlock and John go down a couple of steps into another room, its floor uneven stone flags.

One of these flags has been replaced with a thick sheet of green glass. Sherlock stands on it, looks down.

Lit with coloured LEDs, a narrow well shaft drops into the earth. The water's surface is not visible, just many ferns and mosses thriving in the rough stone sides of the well.

Sherlock bends down, shines a small torch into the well. Raises his eyebrows, grimaces.

John crouches down and peers in. "This is it then."

"Yes." But what of the riddle? Sherlock frowns. He has been thinking it is something about safety, about protection. The well, the source of life, inside the old inn. The inn, and all the houses, inside the stone circle.

But now he knows it is something else.

They enjoy their cream teas and go out for a walk round the stones.

Sherlock says. "See you later," to the publican. He nods.

John looks quizzical.

"I've booked us in for tonight," Sherlock explains. "I want to think."

"Ok."

The standing stones are warm to the touch, despite the cold weather. They retain the sun's heat all through winter. Their surface is rough and flaky, and in places, marked with intricate swirling designs.

"It's an amazing place," John says. "Miles better than Stonehenge. No coach parties either."

Sherlock is silent. He knows why Irene brought him here. Another of her gestures. He understands the need, he thinks. Perhaps it is because she is as broken as he is, in her way.

A feeling of heaviness steals over him. He turns abruptly and says, "Let's get back inside. "

"I've taken pictures anyway," John says, gesturing with his phone.

"I might get an early night," Sherlock says as they trailed back across the rough, boggy grass to the road.

"What, you?"

"Just tired. You don't mind, do you?"

John stares at him in exaggerated disbelief. "You never ask me if I mind. It must be bad."

"Oh shut up."

"I am sure that with the aid of a bar, plus your promise to do the driving in the morning, I can entertain myself. "

They part. Sherlock feels John watching him as he climbs the pub stairs to their room.

He really does feel sleepy. When did he last sleep? He can't remember. Recently, anyway. It is fine. But perhaps he will actually undress and get into bed, just as a precaution.

He throws off his clothes, places John's overnight bag where John will spot it, and climbs into bed.

The well and the circle... all this protection. Oddly it does feel quite safe. Though this is more likely down to the high tech security he noted all around the pub, as if they had had a burglary problem lately.

Sherlock closes his eyes, sighs. Irene.

He is woken by John coming in, much later. Stumbling footsteps - had a couple of drinks, then. Scrabble as he opens the door and finds his way into the room in the dark. A pause, standing still, looking, presumably, at Sherlock in the bed. Then the predictable cursing.

Sherlock does not move. He tells himself this was childish and demonstrated nothing more than his own precarious state of mind. But still he has done it. Booked them a double instead of a twin. John is underimpressed.

He sighs and gets on with it, though. Sherlock hears jacket and shirt being removed, then belt, zip, trousers being placed on the chair with his own.

"Move over," mutters John, and scrambles under the covers. "Blimey, it's freezing, move up!"

Sherlock moves slowly as if still asleep. Feels warmth as John settles beside him.

John turns on his side, back to Sherlock. Sighs.

Faint smell of real ale, John's shower gel.

It had been a long time since he shared a bed with anyone, since he knew the comfort of a fellow human sleeping beside him, breathing, relaxed, warm, unguarded.

It is nice.

Sherlock stirs and turns his face towards John's back.

"You're awake, aren't you," says John calmly, only slightly slurred.

"Yes," Sherlock says.

John sighs heavily. "You booked us a double room."

It is another mind reading moment. "It was the option offered," Sherlock says, which is true. "Problem?"

John sighs again. "No." He obviously knows that Sherlock could have argued for a twin room, or imagine, two separate rooms, but didn't.

"You're weird, you know that, right? You are my best friend, but you are very odd sometimes. "

He reaches for Sherlock's hand and gives it a squeeze. Sherlock removes his hand, squashes up on his side of the bed.

There is silence for a moment, then John says, "I get nightmares."

Sherlock thinks of the circle of protection. "I know," he says.

Nothing else is said. John subsides into sleep and Sherlock closes his eyes too.

Irene was here. Also, she stole something - from the museum. Increased security after the event, almost her signature.

The something did not go far, however. It is taped to the inside of the well. A small stone bracelet, looks ancient.

A gift for him, but he does not want it. Also, if it is a Bronze Age artefact, as he suspects from the brief look at it that he managed, then putting it into the damp, algae rich environment of the well is sacrilege.

He does not want presents he has to jump through hoops for.

Just something freely given without question or expectation.

Sherlock lets his arm rest against John's warm back, and settles, ready in case of the nightmares.

They are inside the circle, and nothing can touch them tonight.


	15. Plenty of nerve

John wakes up in a tangle of legs. His and Sherlock's. He sighs, blinks himself into proper readiness for the day. He is in the pub, in Avebury, in the stone circle, and it is morning.

Sherlock is wrapped right round him, arms around John's chest, his face pressed into the left side of John's head. Asleep.

John wriggles, gets flat on his back. He rarely sees Sherlock sleeping. The man goes for days with no rest. John looks at his breathing pattern. Sherlock has been known to fake sleep, for reasons of his own. No: this appears real. John relaxes, gazes at Sherlock.

His face, asleep, looks young. Long eyelashes. Smooth skin, faintest hint of dark stubble around his jaw. He is clinging to John in a way John feels he ought to find disturbing, Sherlock's face now nuzzled against John's left shoulder, the injured one.

It's lucky John is pretty comfortable with who he is, or this could be awkward. He grins ironically to himself.

He wonders if this is another Sherlock windup, or Sherlock trying to tell him something. Not the obvious thing you might read into finding yourself in bed with your best friend, at his instigation. Sherlock's messages are never that straightforward.

Something else then. Something about ... comfort and protection. John gets that. God knows he's woken up alone enough times wishing someone, anyone was there. Especially with the nightmares.

No nightmares last night, though. That's something. He is not sure Sherlock would be able to handle it. Guns, poisons, bed sharing, yeah, no problem. But John trembling and yelling at imaginary IEDs, maybe not.

He chuckles softly. It is time to get up, discover whatever breakfast the pub offers. He can't really move til Sherlock does though. Ought to wake him.

He doesn't move. When have they ever been close like this? They don't do hugs. That thing yesterday when Sherlock ... held his hand for a moment... it was not typical. And now Sherlock is lying in bed with him, holding him, pressing his face into John's skin.

This is to do with that other thing that Sherlock has been obsessed with lately. That thing. Does John have the nerve to think it, here, now, feeling Sherlock's breath on his arm? John has nerve, sure, plenty of nerve. Love. A tremor runs through John's gut and down his legs.

Definitely time to move. But instead he reaches his right hand across and strokes Sherlock's soft black hair. They are alone, Sherlock is asleep and nobody knows. His hair is silky. Beautiful, just like he is.

No more than that now, a touch and a thought. And even that a risk, with Sherlock's uncanny near-psychic abilities. There are limits. And it is less clear than ever what those limits might be.

His palm brushes Sherlock's cheek. Pale. Looks cold but is warm. Perfect description of the man himself. He has never met anyone so adept at hiding their warmth inside. Except maybe one person, not so far away...

He realizes that Sherlock's breathing has changed, and that he is awake, lying still.

John stops. "Morning," he says, cautiously.

Sherlock opens his eyes, moves suddenly away, props himself on one elbow and looks down at John. His eyes are sharp and alert, bright blue in the silvery morning light. "You didn't have any nightmares," he states, scanning John's face.

"No," says John, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

"Good." Sherlock rolls out of bed, stands up and heads for the en suite.

John takes a patient breath. "Although," he says mildly, "that might have been different if I'd realised you were naked."

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"I lied to you about her," Sherlock says off handedly over breakfast in the pub's chilly restaurant, the fire off and grey light streaming through the windows. The standing stones are not visible. "I knew she wasn't on any programme." He rattles the newspaper and frowns at it whilst slyly looking at John.

No question who he is referring to. "I know." John is demolishing a pile of toast.

"I deceived you about ... being dead, too." Sherlock glances at John, momentarily stilling the paper.

"Yes." It is excellent toast. White bread, nothing seeded or wholegrain or otherwise messed about with, and the butter is good old fashioned Anchor. Perfect.

"I booked us a double room without asking you."

"Yes, why was that again?" John paused with a golden buttered slice halfway to his lips.

"Unasked-for gifts," Sherlock says obscurely.

He is frowning at his phone now, no eye contact with John. Taps to send a message. John reads Greg Lestrade's name upside down, also, Bracelet, Stolen.

Sherlock finally looks up. Stares at John. Those eyes.

It is easier to think about some things when you're out of context, John realises. He would never look at Sherlock this way, thinking that, at home in Baker Street.

"You don't mind," says Sherlock exasperatedly. "You never mind. Why don't you mind?"

John shrugs. "It's not important stuff."

"People's faces tell me that you should mind, a lot more often than you do." He has been deducing. Never stops, Sherlock, never switches off.

"It's you, isn't it." John shrugs again. "You're an exception."

Sherlock looks frustrated. He does not understand.

John explains in a light hearted tone. "If I minded everything you do I would spend my life complaining. It's just laziness really."

Sherlock gives him a hurt glance: Does he really give John so much to complain about? Well, yes.

"I don't mean to - " Sherlock starts.

"It's fine." John holds up a hand. "Don't apologise. It would be pretty boring if you suddenly became like other people."

Sherlock gives him a brief look then away. Smiles slightly at nothing and turns back to the paper.

John doesn't mind this either. For a moment he flashes back to the rumpled double bed, his fingers caressing Sherlock's hair. Lock it away, put it away, let Sherlock be the one with all the answers, accept it all.

I could surprise you, thinks John, dragging the knife across the smooth surface of the butter. The next slice of toast is waiting, hot and moist from the grill. At any moment I could blow your mind. Part of it, anyway. But I won't. I don't need to.


	16. Ahead of the game

The air is chilly for what the calendar says is springtime, but the evening is light and holds a sense of pleasant anticipation. John is on his way to his sister's engagement party, and for once he is not beginning the evening alone.

Sherlock is coming with him.

Sherlock - narrow in black jeans and dark blue shirt. John - going for sharp in charcoal suit and a retro shirt, shiny shoes, pulling it off he thinks, looking good, feeling a spring in his step tonight.

John expects Sherlock to be uncomfortable and bored at this event, and is curious as to why he agreed to come. Perhaps curiosity of his own. He has never met John's sister, and this engagement party is the first time he has shown any interest.

"Just to let you know," John says, as they walk down a gravelled alley towards the suburban scout hall where Harry and Natalie are holding the party. He hesitates. Why does he feel the need to say this? It is Sherlock. John has never heard him make any comments of the type John is imagining, has rarely heard him comment at all on other people, in fact. Other people are not Sherlock's thing unless he is working on them, deducing.

"What?" Sherlock is pacing along, eyes scanning the surroundings as always. He seems a little on edge - has been this way since Avebury - but tonight it could simply be nervousness about going to a party where the only person he knows will be John.

"Some of Harry's friends are more - scene than others."

"Seen?" Sherlock frowns.

"Scene, as in, gay scene."

Sherlock is checking John's face for further information.

"They're just not very conventional," John says. "But they're nice. So ... go easy."

"Do you think I am hard on unconventional people?" Sherlock asks seriously.

"No. I don't even know why I mentioned it." John feels a fool, but it doesn't matter because they are at the door of the scout hall.

"Neither do I." Sherlock flung open the door, held it for John to enter first. "Shall we?"

The hall is large, with a parquet floor, round tables and chairs at one end plus a long table loaded with food. A hatch through to a kitchen serves as a bar. Disco lights twinkle in the rafters and a DJ is playing music from twenty years ago at the far end of the room, which has been cleared, ready to become a dance floor.

The crowd are as John suggested, a mixture - a colourful range of ages and dress sense. Everyone has clearly made an effort, however, and is ready for a party. The conversation is loud and excitable, the booze already flowing.

John's sister Harry is the same height as him, light brown hair turning to grey, styled quite short. She is wearing a green dress with sequins stitched into it - stitched not glued, therefore expensive, John has picked up Sherlock's habit of close observation- and black patent two inch heels. She appears perfectly conventional. Her partner Natalie - "Call me Tilly," - is smaller, slighter, a little younger, and dressed in a blue dress also with stitched sequins, although slightly higher heels. But for all the cute matching outfit and apparent youth, it is clear that Tilly is in charge: she watches Harry constantly, checking her, John realises, and when Harry offers to fetch John and Sherlock a drink, Tilly says, "I'll get them, you chat," and Harry obeys at once.

John glances at Sherlock, checking he is OK and not likely to go off the deep end immediately. He seems fine.

Sherlock is, predictably, getting a lot of attention as they cross the room with Harry. He looks good, naturally, he always looks good, and there is something about him in jeans which sends people wild. It is the contrast, of course - the abrupt, formal, frankly uptight manner set against the denim, the slender hips, the fluid way he always moves but which is visible clearly now, without the coat.

Sherlock's manner and voice say, _I am hugely important and busy and cannot occupy myself with your tedious celebratory mundanities._ His body says, _I could really dance if you let me._

John cannot take his eyes off him, and has to keep remembering to reply to people.

It is particularly bad tonight. Usually when Sherlock is being ... powerful ... John just steps away inside his own head, distances himself and listens to just the words. Ignores the body, except for the eyes, nothing could compel him to avoid Sherlock's eyes. But tonight he cannot switch off. Perhaps it is the odd crossover between family and - work, home, friendship, the thing that he and Sherlock undeniably have but which defies categorisation. John does not know which John to be, is all - Harry's brother or - Sherlock's friend.

Loads of Harry's old mates are here, which is nice, people she's known since college, people she abandoned during the bad years, the alcohol years, who she has now reconnected with. They clearly approve of Tilly, and the way Tilly is looking after her.

John has known many of them since he was at school. They were the crowd Harry hung out with, and although as the despised younger brother his presence was never required, when a gang of them came round to collect Harry ready for a trip up town, John was often in the living room, pretending to watch telly, marvelling at the mates which his parents called, faintly, exotic.

They seem a little less exotic now, if he's honest - forty-something men and women carrying the extra weight of a good life, and a bit more gravitas, as of people who have proper jobs despite themselves.

Several remember John, and are pleased to see him here, at his sister's bash.

There is a lot of hugging, and then introductions to other friends, and Tilly's friends, slight younger, definitely hipper, louder.

It feels good to be here, to be friends with his sister again, to fit in with her old crowd.

John hands Sherlock a cold beer and is prepared to enjoy himself.

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Sherlock watches the chitchat with slight interest. Humans creating connections, or renewing old ones. What is the benefit? Someone to talk to at this event, but if you didn't go you wouldn't need to talk and it would not be awkward. Yet clearly everyone derives pleasure from all this meeting and greeting. John is smiling, laughing, relaxed.

Sherlock feels a flash of affection for John, and smiles at him. John grins back, introduces Sherlock to another friend, a man with exceptionally neat hair, not in a military way like John's, but in a gay, groomed way - and as John touches Sherlock's arm during the introduction, Sherlock's feels a wave of disappointment emanating from the man. _He thinks we're a couple,_ Sherlock thinks, unsurprised.

John notices too, and laughs, actually puts his hand on Sherlock's arm and says something flippant about them just living together.

He is not remotely bothered by the man's inference.

Why is that? Why does John protest about the heterosexual nature of his relationship with Sherlock, whenever people allude to it, except in a room where people clearly indulge in a broad palette of sexual and social preferences, where suddenly he has no issue with it, can laugh about it? Interesting and possibly revealing.

There is a lot of reminiscing, which Sherlock mostly tunes out. People bring him and John drinks - though not Harry or Tilly, he notices. Tilly is managing Harry's sobriety, he realises. She is sober too, not as a result of a recovery program, but through choice. Through love.

She is denying herself a pleasure because her lover must not indulge.

Love again. Sherlock feels the weak spot inside himself, shifting, at the thought. It is like nausea, or dizziness. Some essential building block of his psyche, crumbling, faltering, weakening the whole structure. At moments like this he feels he needed to sit down. It is odd, and a little frightening. Stupid and irrational and obviously stupid but still he is scared for a second.

He looks at John, who instantly understands and says," You all right? Too much punch?"

"Maybe," Sherlock says, although he has not had any.

"I'll get you some water," says John.

He leaves Sherlock standing with the friend of Tilly - Dave. Dave looks as John walks away, eyes travelling automatically to John's legs, hips, bottom, and gives a little lip twitch, an appreciative _yum yum_ look.

Sherlock notices and is torn between saying something clever to show that he has noticed - his default response - and saying something which he suspects would be rude, along the lines of, _He is so far out of your league._

It would be rude, he understands that, that people's sexual interests are not intended to be as signposted as they inevitably are, and it would upset John if he upset a guest here. With great self control he says nothing, even though as John walks back with a plastic cup of water, Dave's eyes are still all over John, his face, neck, belly, crotch.

Sherlock watches John, has he noticed? No. Probably. John is hard to read in these matters, stubbornly so, as if he knows that Sherlock can unpick him - of course - and refuses, in this one area, to allow it. Some notion about privacy, as if there can be privacy between two people who live as they do.

"Thanks," Sherlock says, taking the water from John. It is pure cussedness which makes him touch John's arm as he speaks, look into John's eyes with a slightly special look. That look. Mostly it is just his usual look, plus a bit, but it works.

Dave subsides immediately and goes off to dance.

"You OK? Having fun?" John asks.

"I'm fine," Sherlock says, ignoring the question about fun.

"Wanna dance?" John asks, as if this is a natural progression to being fine.

"I'm fine," Sherlock says again. "I'll just ..." What, watch? That sounds odd although it is exactly what he intends. He makes a non committal gesture. "I'll be here," he says.

Then it is John's turn to give Sherlock a look, the John look of intense but irritatingly unreadable focus. It could be anything. It drives Sherlock mad. Assessment. Care. Concern. Sorrow. Annoyance. Acceptance. Interest. _Focus_ , is all he can pin it down to.

"Fair enough," says John, and weaves his way into the dance floor, working his body between those already leaping about in time to the beat.

Sherlock wanders about, water in hand, smiling but standoffish toward those who try to engage him in conversation. He can feel he is getting some attention of his own, too, from men and women, more than usual, as if here, in this party where everyone knows everyone - where preferences are understood and accepted among friends - it is more OK than ever to gaze at someone you find attractive and unashamedly imagine them naked.

John is dancing. Some girlfriends of Harry and Tilly's - work colleagues, were they? - were around him in a bunch. Giggling and swaying and generally acting up the way that adults do when engaged in an activity which requires a dropping of inhibitions, like dancing. People feel the need to pretend to be not themselves, to do things ironically, to gain plausible deniability in case they make fools of themselves.

But it is impossible to be a fool if you do a thing honestly and fully. Don't they understand that? However you dance, it is your own dance, it is you, and how can you be embarrassed about yourself?

Sherlock watches John, stands still and watches him. John is not self conscious when dancing. He moves slickly, spinning on his heel, hand clap, grin, grab the hand of the nearest woman, twirls her round, swaps her for the next one, all of the women laughing and shimmying and revolving decidedly around John. He laps it up, moves around them with confident hands, sure feet, smiles.

Sherlock sinks into the background and watches, sipping the water mostly for something to do with his hands. It is a rare moment to appreciate the physicality of John, his material presence, as it were. He is so often simply there, a warmth, a voice, a blurred shape at the edges of Sherlock's case-focused tunnel vision, that Sherlock forgets to look at him, fix him in physical space. Tonight, he is looking. John is not paying any attention. Sherlock runs his eyes over John, taking in every detail.

Square hands, strong fingers, reassuring palms. Broad shoulders, shown off today in the formal shirt. John dresses up for parties. Sherlock dresses down - a difference between them. Flat stomach, loose knees, unmistakable stance of a fighting man, that easy grace belonging to people who don't want to have to kill you but who easily could. Clear, open face, large brown eyes, brown hair, grey run all the way through it these days. Soft hair or wiry? Sherlock doesn't know.

John knows. Sherlock had been woken by the feel of John's fingers in his hair, caressing his hair, exploring his hair.

The recollection sends a tingle through him, as it always does. Touch had not been in Sherlock's admittedly vague plan. The plan had simply been to do with preventing nightmares, and perhaps to do with pushing John's tolerance a little to see what happened (total acceptance, as normal).

And yet Sherlock had slept, actually fallen asleep holding onto John to keep the nightmares off, his arms wrapped round John's T-shirted chest, one leg and foot flung over John's too. However - that had been an accident of sleep, albeit rather pleasant. That was not touching.

John had touched Sherlock's hair knowingly, whilst awake. Stopped the moment he realised Sherlock was present.

Nothing was said. John did not appear embarrassed by any of it. He simply carried on as normal. Sherlock knew that if he asked John outright, he wouldn't deny it, but would look at him calmly and allow Sherlock to make of it what he chose.

Sherlock is struck, as he had been that morning, by a strong feeling that John is somehow ahead of the game. But there is no evidence for this. And there is no game. It is simply Sherlock and John.

The music changes, intensifies. Sherlock recognises it but does not recall details - who, when. Familiar and intense, music for serious dancing, for losing yourself in. Unleashed by the DJ now that everyone has got the ironic phase out of their system.

The gravitational field around John shifts too, and there are men in his group, men dancing with him and, noticeably, _at_ him. The courtship ritual. _Notice my body, see the kind of thing I can do with it, understand that I am offering it to you._

One of them is Dave again, a little drunker, Sherlock nowhere in sight, and he is grooving next to John, both of them really getting into it. Dave touches John's shoulder, John grins, Dave grins back and a flicker passes between them, then John is laughing, one hand raised slightly, _No_ , but Dave is smiling wolfishly and takes hold of John's hand and spins him round and John just goes with it.

Sherlock blinks.

John just accepts it. This man's... blatant advances, he just accepts them, carries on, makes only the most token of protests.

Why?

This man is not Sherlock.

Sherlock holds the plastic cup perfectly still and thinks many things. His stomach has a tremor which distracts him. He stares at John, thinks. He has to think, because otherwise unfettered jealous rage would make him do something unacceptable at an engagement party.

John does not belong to that man. John does not belong to anyone, people obviously are not possessions. But -

Sherlock hands the cup to the nearest person without asking, and walks onto the dance floor. He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes for a second and remembers college, the midnight escapes from the watch of Mycroft's little spies, the clubs and the music and the endless supply of willing people.

He opens his eyes, stands close to John and says with a dark smile, "Changed my mind about dancing."

There is no preamble. He simply takes John's hand and swings him round, eye contact broken only for a moment in the twirl and then back, drawing John into his gaze, excluding everyone else, soaking John up with his stare, the stare he hasn't used on anyone for a very long time.

John opens his eyes wide, flinches at Sherlock's touch as if burned, is clearly mesmerized. Grips Sherlock's hand, spins round, meets the stare on the way back and parts his lips in ... amazement?

No. Not amazement. Sherlock has only ever used this stare for one thing, and it has an almost one hundred percent success rate. He ought not to use it on John but it is the fastest way to get John's attention, and Sherlock cannot bear, cannot stand, cannot exist and see Dave attempting his pathetic display. This stare, this special stare, has only one purpose, one required effect on the recipient: arousal.

He lets go of John's hand and adjusts his expression to something less intense. Grins at John, who is evidently in shock. Thinks gleefully : I am seventeen again.

The DJ plays Open Your Heart by M People, some club mix with a ton of bass and extra-sharp piano. "I know this one," Sherlock says in surprise, and lifts his arms like a swordsman taking sixte on guard position. He slides his hips side to side. John's gaze is fixed intently on Sherlock's face.

The world falls away around them and they dance.


	17. Uncloaked desire

There is a lot of silence in the cab on the way back. Sherlock stares out of the window. John leans back in the seat, legs out in front of him, ankles crossed, looking blindly at the advert on the inside of the privacy glass.

Sherlock tonight ... what the hell was that? Mischief, John suspects. Sheer bloody mischief. Saw John dancing with whatsisface, Dave, and decided he wanted in, but of course just dancing was not enough, Sherlock had to make a thing of it, come up and give John the full treatment, that... seduction.

John shivers. The evening had already been supercharged, a turning point in Harry's life, a reconciliation between her and John, plus seeing all those people from the distant past. Sherlock in jeans.

And then that. Sherlock took his hand, had touched him often throughout the evening in fact, but on the dance floor, he took John's hand and gazed into his eyes deliberately and gave John a look he had never seen on Sherlock's face before, a dark look of deep intention and uncloaked desire.

It makes John dizzy even now. He knows Sherlock's was acting, was playing a game - jealous of Dave, John realises - just wanted to wind John up and play a new card, but still the instant effect of that stare... John feels hot all over, remembering it. He shifts in the cab seat as if getting more comfortable.

Where did all that intensity come from?

John knows that is not his true question - Sherlock is made of intensity. What he means is, where did all that desire come from? Where has it been hiding, and where has it gone back to, now?

He glances casually at Sherlock. He looks tired. Unusual. No case, that's the problem.

Nothing else. Sherlock is staring, somewhat vacantly for him, at the passing buildings. Thinking, no doubt.

It was made up. It was a game. Just Sherlock being jealous. He is permanently jealous, John knows this. Sherlock hates it when John spends time with anyone else, is only happy when John is there or prepared, at a moment's notice, to be there. Everyone is expected to be at Sherlock's beck and call, but he only really gets upset if it is John who lets him down, as he sees it, by failing to respond instantly to any demand.

John doesn't mind this - among all those other things he does not mind - because it reminds him that he is important to Sherlock. And seeing Sherlock jealous tonight was funny and quite sweet. But the way he got rid of Dave - the look - the electricity which passed from Sherlock's hand to John's as they touched - that was not jealousy talking. Was it?

John breathes deeply and becomes aware that while he has started thinking about Sherlock's hips in those jeans, tight denim and taut waist and slow smooth rhythm as they danced... Sherlock has turned his head and is gazing at him.

"You weren't hoping to sleep with anyone tonight, were you?" he asks casually.

Ever to the point. "What, from the party? No. Of course not."

"Just checking. Good."

This is not a discussion to start, yet John does. "Why good?"

"I was jealous," Sherlock says frankly, eyes bright and clear, and floors John again.

"Of me," he asks faintly, needing to be sure.

"Of course. You know I was."

"Yes." He does know, but is not sure what kind of jealousy it was. Oh God. Now there are layers and types of jealousy and they must not get into this.

They must not, but they are. Now they have started down a very odd path. Is the cabbie listening?

John thinks of all the things he could say and rejects them. What he wants to say: Why did you do that to me, come up and stare into my eyes and dance with me and make me nearly drop with how beautiful you are and your legs in those jeans. Why? How? Is that real?

What he would normally say: Let's get home and have a cuppa, I'm parched. Classic deflection, but it usually works, even on Sherlock, who does not expect it from John

What he might say, if any of this was known fact: I have hidden my feelings for you for months and years and are you trying to tell me now that you feel the same, because it is currently not washing with me, not one bit.

"You certainly put Dave right off," is what he says in the end.

"And everybody," says Sherlock smugly.

"Yes, my sister has already texted me."John held up his phone. It read, "When did this happen? You lucky boy!"

Sherlock smirked.

"I know it's funny...but -"

At this point he runs out.

"I need to get home and go to bed," he says at last.

"Good idea," Sherlock says.

John experiences a moment of simultaneous horror and longing. He blinks slowly and says calmly, "I'm at a good bit in my book."

"Excellent," says Sherlock.

John has a strong vision of himself, leaning on his pillow in bed holding a book, and Sherlock propped on one elbow beside him reading over his shoulder, too fast, becoming impatient. This detail leaps out more sharply than the mere fact of sharing a bed.

"Can't wait to get the kettle on," John says finally, and turns his face to the window.

He can't see but he knows that Sherlock is still looking at him. John curses in his head, because now this whole business is on Sherlock's radar, Sherlock's terrifyingly accurate radar which can detect a wrong word, look or gesture among ten thousand, among years, and unlock their true meanings.

Relax, John, you are panicking over nothing. Sherlock was messing with you, he has no idea what it really meant to you. Calm down. He will forget about this if you do. Just forget it.

"Odd," says Sherlock suddenly.

John snaps round.

Sherlock's long fingers are on his phone. "Text from Mycroft with nothing in it."

He shows John.

"I didn't think you could send an empty text," says John.

"Mycroft can do anything," says Sherlock with great disdain.

Another beep as a new message arrives. "We are wanted at Mycroft's club," Sherlock announces. "Immediately."

John swears and sighs. "Now? Really? I'm sorry Sherlock but frankly he can piss right off. I'm tired, I've had a few, I just want to go home and fall into bed. I am not in the mood for Mycroft, not that I ever am."

There is a pause. John is not generally so forthright on the subject of Mycroft.

"You're tired," Sherlock says, in his fact checking tone.

"Shattered. It's way past midnight, Sherlock."

Sherlock's eyes glitter. "You're right, of course."

Of course? John glances across, at that.

"I'll call him tomorrow," says Sherlock. "Probably."

He deletes the texts with vicious stabs and shoves the phone back into his pocket.

It beeps again, but they both ignore it.


	18. Mandarin

"I was wrong about John Watson," Mycroft says, curling his lip. "I don't think he's good for you at all."

Silence is Sherlock's only defense against Mycroft, the only one that works. It has always been like this. No matter what Sherlock says, Mycroft can damage it, destroy it, poison it until Sherlock no longer wants to own his own words.

Silence is the last resort on important topics, topics which must not bear Mycroft's barium taint.

Mycroft can do silence too, however. He waits and stares at Sherlock with one eyebrow raised a millimetre, and of course it is Sherlock who cracks first.

Sherlock speaks with all the scorn he can manage. "You're just annoyed because they kidnapped you," he says.

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-Earlier that morning-

Sherlock sleeps and dreams of murder, an intricate case with multiple suspects who each need to be ruled out. Every alibi grows from a different branch of forensic science and the evidence mounts until Sherlock's vision is awash with reasons why not. He resolves the case, but in that unsatisfying dream way, when he knows his subconscious is only coming up with an answer so that it can move on, a possible answer but not a plausible one, not one which really gives a sense of completion.

He feels hands on his shoulders and a warm presence nearby, thinks John and Disaster simultaneously because John never wakes him up. He wakes, sees John's face, worried, close to his, and a newspaper.

Sherlock sits up, saying, "What, what is it, what's wrong," whilst realising that the dream has left him awkwardly aroused, annoying. He sweeps the covers up around himself as John hands him the newspaper.

Front page, _Mandarin snatched from secretive club,_ and pictures of the Diogenes, and Mycroft.

Sherlock reads the report in one gulp while clawing up his dressing gown. His mind is turning over all the possibilities, rejecting most of them, arraying the few known facts, ready for further evidence.

"I don't understand why Lestrade hasn't called us," John says, standing aside as Sherlock's bare feet hit the floor.

"The police don't deal with political coups," Sherlock says shortly, tossing aside the previous night's clothes. Jeans, not jeans, obviously, not for this.

John's eyes are on him, alert and calm. He opens Sherlock's wardrobe and with one hand takes out the nearest hanger, bearing one of this year's set from Gieves and Hawkes. Gives it to Sherlock.

"Coffee," says Sherlock, "is there coffee?"

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"You said political coup," John says in the cab.

"What?" Thinking of who will be there, who will need to be intimidated, and surely they won't be armed.

"Political coup. The paper just said kidnap."

"Oh. yes. Obviously."

Get in, explain the situation to them, get Mycroft, get out. Need some kind of incentive, don't have one. Aggravating but workable. Public school accent plus sheer force of will to access the building, then find where they have Mycroft.

John is waiting, looking at him. Oh yes.

"Anyone who knows anything about the way the government works, the real way, understands that it doesn't matter who is nominally in power, the country is being run by the civil service, and the people who control that can essentially do whatever they like. Mycroft controls all of that, not to mention some other things, so anyone wanting to take down the government need only get to him and they can assume control, real control, without a shot being fired."

"Right," says John. "Bit of a blow to democracy."

"Democracry," spits Sherlock.

"Right," says John. "Where are we going?"

"Chequers."

"Oh right. Ok then."

The house designated as the country retreat of any serving prime minister, is solid and unpretentious. Its police guards are somewhat similar and it takes Sherlock only a moment to convince them that he and John are there by invitation.

"The PM's not here," Sherlock says as a car takes them from the gate up to the house. "Probably quaking somewhere."

"I can't believe we're in here," says John. He is looking out of the window at the spacious grounds dotted with oak trees, and swathes of daffodils among the grass.

"Let me do the talking," Sherlock says, somewhat unnecessarily.

There is a pause during which the only sound is that of wheels on freshly raked gravel.

"You all right?" John asks.

"What? Yes, of course."

"He is your brother."

John is expecting Sherlock to be upset, personally upset because the victim of this particular crime is a relation. Sherlock briefly considers faking a level of minor concern, but abandons the idea. It is too much effort, too repulsive as a notion and anyway he could never fool John, who understands his despite of Mycroft.

But John's face tells him that he ought to feel something. His own brother, et cetera. His only family, in fact, there is no one else. A distant cousin abroad. Mycroft is it, is everything.

Mycroft is nothing. Worse than nothing. Nothing wouldn't expend so much time and effort trying to ruin your life from the moment you were born.

Sherlock feels none of the things John thinks he ought to feel. If Mycroft were dead his first reaction would be relief.

This probably makes him someone who John would despise, or at least, mistrust. Humans trust others they believe to be human. Humanity is defined by networks of attachment. Ergo, Sherlock is not human.

Ridiculous. Sherlock does have feelings for Mycroft, plenty of them, it is just that they are from the socially unacceptable end of the familial love spectrum, comprising hatred, despite, revulsion and fear.

"Yes," Sherlock says. "He is my brother."

He knows it is a sign of what is wrong with him, that he can contemplate the death of his only relative without a qualm, but today, now, on the case, his gut is strong. No structural flaws. John is beside him and the horrifying weakness inside is nowhere and his mind is functioning as it should. Good.

The car is almost at the front steps.

"I need an incentive," Sherlock says, frowning.

"To rescue him?"

"For them to release him."

"Oh, a ransom. Sorry, but my pockets are empty." John makes a facetious show of checking for millions of pounds about his person.

Sherlock stares at John. "You are brilliant!" he exclaims, grabbing for his phone. "Thank you. That is exactly what I need."

Of course, of course. The message. The annoying message Mycroft sent last night when he and John were on their way back from the party full of people who found John attractive.

Sherlock flicks his phone, finds a decryption app he is not supposed to know about, never mind have on his personal phone.

-John is watching Sherlock's fingers as they work the phone with dabs and swipes. Watching closely, the way Sherlock watches things. Interesting, save for later.

Find Mycroft's empty message. He deleted it in a fit of pique. Damn - but Mycroft re-sent it just after, which just strengthens Sherlock's theory. Open it.

It is not empty at all.

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"You were slow," says Mycroft.

He is sitting on a striped silk dining chair beside a tiny table with nothing on it. The room is sumptuous - gilt and plaster cherubs chase each other across a ceiling at least twenty feet above - but Mycroft is in the centre, alone, not near any other item. Although he appears composed and fresh, Sherlock can tell from the misaligned creases in his trousers that he has been sitting there a very long time.

The men at the doors are armed, stocky, not in the least nervous.

Sherlock actually recognises Mycroft's captor. An unimportant would-be Mycroft whom Sherlock encountered during the ghost sterling business. A fool.

"I have what you want," Sherlock tells the man boredly. "Release him and it's yours."

He holds up his phone. "Stock exchange hacks for all the countries whose currency is worth betting on in the international money markets."

The man reaches for Sherlock. John moves very slightly and the man stops. John gives him a look which says, Good.

"I could have you shot," says the man.

Mycroft rolls his eyes.

"You could," says Sherlock, not looking at the armed guards, "but then you would never be able to get more of this sort of thing, much more. You know who I am. I know a lot of codes and somebody like you would find me much more useful alive than dead."

The man nods. An instant decision maker, one tiny point in his favour. He passes a phone to Sherlock, at arm's length.

Mycroft stands.

Sherlock sends the not-at-all empty message to the kidnapper. "Now leave," he says, glaring round at the men.

John has the look of a man hoping they put up a fight.

They don't. John follows them to the door anyway, shuts and locks it.

"Great," he says. "Job done."

"The appropriate people are on their way," says Mycroft, taking out his own phone and looking at it. "Sides have finally been taken."

"But they've got the codes," says John. "What were those codes anyway?"

"It almost doesn't matter," says Sherlock, casting his eyes over Mycroft. "They just had to believe that the code was important."

"I hate to correct you, dear brother," says Mycroft.

"No, you love to correct me."

"True. But the code - it doesn't matter at all."

"Why?" How he dislikes having to ask, to play these pointless conversational games.

"Because I can do this." Mycroft presses a button on his phone.

Sherlock's phone beeps.

The message - the empty message which wasn't, the ransom which Mycroft sent for himself when he knew he was in danger - is gone.

Mycroft is so tiresome.

"Well," says John. "Do you want me to examine you?" This to Mycroft and with obviously enforced professionalism.

"You can find us some tea," says Mycroft.

John stares at him with undisguised dislike. Looks at Sherlock.

Sherlock gives him a very slight nod.

John pauses at the door. "Funny thing," he says, "when I first read the headline I wondered why anyone was so worried about oranges."

Mycroft looks blank.

"Mandarin," says John to Sherlock with a smirk, and Sherlock snorts laughter.

Mycroft loses his composure for a split second and there is rage underneath. John sees it, chuckles, grins at Sherlock, and closes the door behind him.

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"I was wrong about John Watson," Mycroft says. "I don't think he's good for you at all."

"You're just annoyed because they kidnapped you," says Sherlock.

"He delayed you,"saysMycroft. "I have had a most uncomfortable evening waiting for you to arrive."

"I was asleep,"says Sherlock.

"You were socialising." Mycroft sounds disgusted.

How does he always know? How much surveillance does he have on Sherlock at any time? And on John. He knows everything about John.

He knows nothing about John. John stroking Sherlock's hair.

"He is diluting you," Mycroft says then. "Weakening you, making you less able to do your work. Really, Sherlock, an engagement party. Hardly a valid use of your time and resources." Mycroft paces a little in the elegant room, moving his head around as if to stretch a stiff neck. It gives him a reptilian aspect which makesSherlock's skin crawl. "I think it might be time he moved on, in fact. Your work is too important to be distracted by these social fripperies."

Flattery from Mycroft, a dangerous phenomenon. "Thought you said you wanted to keep John at my side," Sherlock says carelessly. Where is John, with or without the tea?

"I've changed my mind." Mycroft is wandering away, showing off his nonchalant gait, his infuriating lightness of tone.

"It's irrelevant anyway. John is my flatmate. He sometimes assists me. Why you are convinced he is somehow polluting me, I have no idea. My work remains the same." Sherlock has a tightness in his gut now, tension, sickness, the usual outcomes of contact with Mycroft.

"And now you deny him. So sad, so sad. I can end it at any time," Mycroft calls from the far side of the room.

Sherlock freezes. No. John is part of me. "Whatever," he says in a tone guaranteed to irritate Mycroft. "It's not important." His heart is pounding. Mycroft has so much power.

The door opens and John arrives. "No tea," he says,revealing two men in butler uniforms behind him. They do not walk like butlers, however. "Apparently we are not supposed to be here." He grins.

"Time to go," says Mycroft cheerfully, waving Sherlock towards John. "Goodbye, John Watson," he adds with a leer just for Sherlock.

Sherlock stalks to the door with maximum teenage attitude. The fortress inside him is eroding rapidly and he can do nothing to stop it, to protect himself or John. He does not say goodbye to Mycroft.

John gives Mycroft a nasty wink. "Mandarin," John says into Sherlock's ear, but this time Sherlock does not smile.


	19. Air rifle

John closes his bedroom door, pushes it shut with a definite click. He takes a long breath. Bedtime. It is late - past one a.m. - and he is exhausted after an all day shift at the chronic pain clinic. He deliberately stayed up late afterwards, to tire himself out - a bad habit which he knows does not ultimately work but which is the only answer he has right now.

He will sleep, and he will dream, and he will get the nightmare - they vary but he thinks of them as all being chapters in the same ongoing horror - and then it will be over and he will lie awake for a bit and then go back to sleep and get up in the morning like a person who is not terrified to climb into his own bed.

It is not the dream itself which scares him. That is just a dream. Intellectually he knows this. No, it is anticipation of the dream, of the about-to-die signals his brain sends him, that has him procrastinating even now, taking ages to potter round the room, put his wallet in its usual place on his bedside cabinet, delay as long as possible the start of the inevitable process.

He is aware that he could end up with a sleep phobia if he continues like this.

On the positive side, if that should happen, at least he lives with someone likely to be awake through most parts of most nights. Sherlock retreats to bed only when he has squeezed the utmost of work and learning from a day, when time and energy can give him no more.

John suspects Sherlock does most of his sleeping on the sofa while John is at work. Especially this past couple of weeks. Since the kidnap or coup whatever it was, Sherlock has been more manic even than usual.

They have been communicating primarily via text and post-it, as their paths have barely crossed. Sherlock has abandoned his customary finickety approach to case selection, and has been taking all of them.

John supposes they could always use the money. Not that he has been much help on any of this current raft of cases. But keeping the cheques rolling in was definitely preferable to surviving on his salary alone, as the manner to which Sherlock is accustomed does not include mundanities such as a budget.

John smiles. Sherlock and money. He rarely spends money - does not go shopping in the traditional sense of the word - yet when he buys something it is with complete disregard for the price. Only quality and fitness for purpose, are considerations. Just look at those suits.

And if they eat out - pretty often, since who can be bothered with cooking, or worse, washing up? - Sherlock never, ever, looks at the prices on the menu. He just has whatever he wants.

And John is still standing fully clothed by his bed, not getting ready for sleep.

He sighs. Takes off his clothes. Chilly air on his bare skin. Just get into bed. For God's sake. Move.

He climbs in, pulls the duvet up round his ears. Lies with his hands clutching the duvet at his neck and his knees pulled up - patently not a sleep position.

It is horrible to be so tired and to be unable to rest.

When he is working on a case with Sherlock, he has to sleep whenever a gap in activity allows, just to keep up with Sherlock's boundless energy. But this week he has just done his own job, which currently involves a hefty chunk of counselling as well as meds to help patients manage long-term pain, and although Sherlock has said it is fine and he is just doing the dull ones while John is at work, John would still much rather be involved because he gets less tired, crazy as it sounds, when haring around London with Sherlock without the luxury of time for an incipient sleep disorder.

Calm down, calm down. Think about pleasant things.

Not those pleasant things.

Oh, what the hell. He can't help it, anyway.

The door is closed, nobody knows and this is none of anybody's business.

Sherlock's hair.

John closes his eyes.

Sherlock lying, naked as it turned out, with arms and legs draped over John, and his cheek, his mouth, against John's shoulder.

Sherlock dancing, a thing John never thought of before the moment he saw it, moving in close beside him, warm and sinuous, and looking at John with eyes which plainly said, I want you, I will have you, you are mine.

John shivers, stretches out.

This thing is definitely on John's list of Strange but True. Sherlock. How John feels about him. Impossible and unmanageable, and since the dancing, totally beyond control. He ought to stop, get a grip, look elsewhere (how, when it is Sherlock? Not even possible) but he won't. He admits freely to himself that he has it bad, likely permanently.

It is still wrong though. He ought to stop.

This is not a fancying a man problem. It is a being in love with your best friend problem.

Oh God, don't think it. Love. All the ways Sherlock is wonderful. How he makes John laugh. How he looks at John as if nobody else exists. How only John seems to matter to him at all (the most perfect idea). How he constantly winds John up with mad behaviour and provocative statements and constant, reflexive insults. How life is never dull with him around. How John worries about him and how, sometimes, Sherlock shows that he does care too. (Sherlock's hand on his.)

How Sherlock is jealous over him.

How he runs his fingers over that damn phone.

Oh God.

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Sherlock is awake in the living room beneath John's room. His hair is sticking up all over - he has been tearing at it in irritation. His eyes are dry and sore and he has been reading by the light of the fire, which John would tut about. He is processing tiny cases at breakneck speed, most of them worthy only of a line or two of explanation via John's blog's contact email.

He is also trying to track down and neutralise Mycroft's surveillance network, the human element at least. There is not much he can do about the myriad cameras on London's streets, bar shooting out the nearest ones with the air rifle every morning after John has gone to work.

He cannot declare outright war on Mycroft - Mycroft would win - but he can spoil his plans a little.

He has established who reports back to Mycroft about John's working day, and who follows him there and back. A little research resulted in some prime blackmail material which, carefully applied, will ensure that information flows the other way, at rather less cost than Mycroft is expending.

There does not appear to be an immediate threat to John's life, but this succeeds only in making Sherlock more nervous. It is possible that there is no threat and that Mycroft was joking. Jerking Sherlock's chain, as John would say. But it is possible too that Sherlock has missed something.

If he finds a hint, a waft of danger, he will have to tell John, for his own safety. Sherlock cannot be around all the time. Anyone can walk into the clinic where John works. But until he is sure, Sherlock will keep this area of concern to himself. John has been getting increasingly tense the last two weeks, and there is no point making it worse unnecessarily.

Sherlock tries to assess the probability of danger and fails. Too many unknowns, especially Mycroft's purpose.

Life, work, without John is - not unimaginable. Horribly imaginable. Dull, inconvenient, empty. Lonely.

No one who tells him he is extraordinary, with no ulterior motive, and no self consciousness in giving the praise.

No one to help him think and act. No one to care what he says beyond its usefulness. No one who actually laughs when he says something funny. No one who inspires him to say something funny. No one who makes Sherlock laugh. John's wit is straightforward but effective, like John himself.

... No one who wants to touch his hair as he sleeps, though this cannot be counted as it is not properly known.

Is that what John thinks about when he is upstairs in his room, as now, audibly unable to sleep? Is he remembering Avebury, lying in bed with Sherlock, caressing Sherlock's hair?

Now it is Sherlock who is remembering. John beside him, warm and unfazed and how Sherlock stopped the nightmares and how satisfying that was.

Sherlock has sharp ears but it is John's thoughts he wishes he could hear pulsing past him in a stream of details and emotions. But John keeps his thoughts on this subject, like his expression, unreadable. Infuriating. Fascinating. Tempting?

Life without John must not happen.


	20. Dots of inevitability

Five a.m. and John is sitting downstairs at the table at Baker Street, supposedly having risen early for no reason, just felt like it. In fact he has been woken by a pounding heart, post-nightmare, and needed to get up and move around and shake it off.

He had also been hoping that Sherlock would be awake. Even if he were engrossed in some microscopic search for evidence, or simply thinking, undisturbable, that would be ok. Just having him around, nearby, is enough to settle John's mind, and it is always a distraction from bad dreams to try to read a newspaper whilst waiting for an explosion.

But Sherlock must have finally gone to bed, and John is alone.

He has spent all week alone. Sherlock has been avoiding him. John does not know why. It was less obvious the previous week when Sherlock was busy, but this week when John has bumped into him, briefly in the kitchen, or leaving as John arrived, he simply seems tired.

Sad.

And tonight, even though he has been in, all evening, he has just been sitting in his chair, staring at John's empty chair. John took one look and sat on the settee instead.

Sherlock picked up his violin and put it down, twice. Waved away coffee. At one point John, concerned, came and stood beside the chair and made the smallest motion to touch Sherlock's shoulder and ask if he was Ok, and Sherlock flinched, glared, then turned his head away, frowning.

But it is not anger John can feel radiating from Sherlock. Sherlock's anger is unmistakable. He rages around the flat and throws things. This is not that.

It is sadness.

John drinks coffee, sitting at the table, dawn light making the whole flat look cold, and pretends he is just thinking idly about this. But he can't. He admits his worry to himself and sighs.

Sherlock is withdrawn, sad, disconnected. Last week he was manic, hyper, disconnected. Next week - who knows?

It is not the kind of uncertainty that John enjoys.

He sips coffee slowly, carefully, no sudden moves.

Can it be that Sherlock is truly ill? John assumes he had some kind of horrendous childhood, neglect or bullying or just plain miserable because he was different. Is it possible... That there is simply something wrong with him? Wrong in the head.

The idea gives John a chill. He sits tapping his fingers on the coffee mug and then gets up. He moves silently to the hall. Sherlock's door is ajar. John places his body in the gap between door and wall and looks into the bedroom.

Sherlock is curled up in the centre of the bed, his back to John, the white sheet pulled up over his legs. His skin is pale, looks cold as always. His dark hair is spread on the pillow, his face hidden.

John watches, compelled to see that Sherlock is breathing. He is, deeply, slowly, evenly, the flickering mind slowed and quieted for the present.

Still John hovers. He steps into the room, feeling a fool, and reaches for the covers. He pulls up the goosedown duvet around Sherlock's bare shoulders. Tucks it in a little comforted by the proof that Sherlock is warm and breathing.

Sherlock stirs, reaches out vaguely with his right hand, says, "John," quite distinctly.

John says nothing. Waits and watches to see Sherlock sink back into sleep.

If there really is something wrong, what will he do? Immediate and simple answer. Drag Sherlock to therapy, make him go, get meds if necessary, force him to take them, sit with him at danger times, never leave his side if there is a chance he would do anything stupid.

Protect him.

And if the meds and the therapy and John's friendship are not enough?

What if they were to lose him?

Fear wells up in John. It is like standing on the platform, feeling the rumble that means the train is coming. It starts with a sensation that you are not quite hearing something, then certainty, then the tremor beneath your soles, then lights, dots of inevitability in the tunnel. Stay behind the line as the train thunders towards you.

John sinks to the floor and sits cross legged beside the bed. He is likely to get trodden on in the morning. Sherlock won't make any comment though, on finding John in his room having sat there all night. John knows this, is certain of it. What does that mean, that he knows Sherlock will not say anything?

A bloke thing. No need to keep banging on. It must be obvious that John is worried.

And also, that Sherlock doesn't mind. He accepts John's foibles and fears as John accepts his moods and strangenesses.

Sherlock is peculiar but precious.

John closes his eyes. Takes breaths to control the spasm which has started up in his stomach. Let the fear pass. It is only fear, it cannot hurt you. You are safe.

He listens to Sherlock's breathing. Sherlock is safe with John here.

The fear passes over and through John in waves of sweat and chill and nobody is there to comfort him.

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Sherlock jumps down from bed, chilly in just pyjama bottoms. He crouches beside John and grips his shoulder strongly. "John, you're here. You're here and everything is OK." He has never seen someone have a panic attack before and it is frightening, to see a strong person so felled. He keeps this inside and concentrates on sounding normal, even-toned, reassuring.

John is far away inside his fear and Sherlock can only sit with him, and wait for it to pass. And after a while it does, or lessens at any rate, and John moves to stand, rubbing his hand over his face and not meeting Sherlock's eye. And Sherlock says, "No, stay here," and lays his hand on the bed. "No," says John, looking extremely freaked out, so Sherlock says, "Ok," and just drags the duvet down off the bed and wraps it round John where he is, and puts his dressing gown on and sits next to him, both of them leaning against the side of the bed, and John doesn't say anything and neither does Sherlock.


	21. Imprint

"You shouldn't sleep alone,"Sherlock says baldly as they are reading the papers one morning.

John takes a breath and battens down the immediate thought, which is that Sherlock is suggesting John sleeps with him. He puts down the paper, which is full of bile about Eastern European criminals. "OK ...why not, exactly?"

"You get nightmares." Presented as fact. Paper still raised, eyes scanning text. But John sees the millisecond glance up, at him.

"I get nightmares anyway." Solitude and nightmares - now obviously linked in Sherlock's assessment of John.

"No, you don't. You never got nightmares when you had girlfriends staying over."

John notices two things at once: that Sherlock has been monitoring his nightmares, since day one, and also, that he is speaking about John's girlfriends firmly in the past tense.

"Right. You know that, do you?" He hadn't mentioned anything specifically to Sherlock about nightmares until ... Avebury. Ties that thought down tightly too.

"You seemed to seek out overnight company more when you first moved into the flat. There was always somebody." Paper lowered, resting on the table. Sherlock's hands loose and easy.

"And it didn't occur to you that this might be my natural animal magnetism?" John forces a grin. This conversation is weird even by their standards.

Sherlock smiles. "It's obvious that you wanted to avoid the trauma of the nightmares. So you were trying not to be alone whenever possible. But now you're not. And you're getting them again, more often."

"Do you stand outside my door all night or something? -Don't answer that, I'm just being facetious."

Also, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that this is exactly what Sherlock does, and John does not want to know.

"I've just been too busy to bother lately," John said. "And, you know, things are fine as they are. Being single. It's no big deal." He has yet to say anything - even Thank you - to Sherlock about the other night, when he had the fear just fall on him as he sat in Sherlock's room. He wished Sherlock had not seen it, witnessed his weakness, another sign of his total inferiority. Sherlock has said nothing about it either. Does not appear to have an opinion on it. But he did try to help, which is...embarrassing, mortifying, and painful to recall. "I'm fine," he reiterates.

"Apart from the nightmares."

"What are you getting at?"

Big silence.

Sherlock is staring at him, really staring. He is an inveterate gazer at the best of times - seems to want to save time and effort by telepathically transmitting direct into people's brains - but this particular stare contains a lot of flicker. Sherlock's mind is working, whirring away at something and is trying to frame it in a way that John's feeble brain will comprehend.

John waits, seeing the sky reflected in Sherlock's eyes, grey onto blue, light flaring like fire around his black pupils. He could honestly do this all day: watch Sherlock, allow him to be the one to speak, thinking his own thoughts safe inside whilst looking at Sherlock's fascinating eyes.

"Nothing."

Sherlock gets up and stalks to the window, looks out. "That Romanian beggar is there again. But that's not a real baby she's holding," he says. "Might go and take a look."

"OK." John begins to get up from his chair.

"No no, it's fine. I'll be back in a bit."

And off he goes.

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"Sherlock, let me in." John is standing in front of him with a determined expression. He is clearly in, got home from the hospital an hour ago.

"What?"

"You're shutting me out. Working on a case, I know you are, and you haven't told me anything about it and I want to help so please, let me in." Arms folded feet planted squarely, presenting as an immovable object.

"It's dull. You wouldn't enjoy it."

"Why don't I be the judge of that?"

They glare at each other for a moment, then John says, "I thought this was meant to be a partnership. Us."

"You know it is."

"So treat me as an equal. I don't care if it's dull or what it is, I just want to help."

"You are my equal." Does he not know this?

John humphs at this and stands, waiting.

"Ok," says Sherlock. "I'll tell you what I'm working on. And there's something you can help me with right now as a matter of fact."

He gestures out of the window. "While I explain, please can you shoot those security cameras? You're a much better shot than me and the neighbours are starting to get antsy about their brickwork."

John looks at him. Sherlock can see the tension being released from his forehead. John is right, as he often is. Sherlock should have told him to start with about Mycroft's threat.

Now John looks better. Happier. Good.

"I'll get the air rifle," says John, and strolls out whistling.

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"Got you this. Might help."

It is a short silk dressing gown, navy blue. It is wrapped and folded as if new. But that night, as soon as John takes it out of the ribbon he knows that it is not new. Or rather, it is, but it has been worn. By Sherlock.

Another mysterious message? He doesn't think so. Thinks Sherlock is just trying to help. Has thought of this, and will want to know, tomorrow, if it worked. An experiment.

He wraps it around himself and ties the belt. Lies down on the bed. Breathes Sherlock in.

It does help. It is like having him here, potent, beside him.

It may not be helping in the exact ways Sherlock intended, though.

John places his hands on his chest and prepares for sleep. Realises that sleep, enveloped in Sherlock, is not possible. Allows his hands to slide down inside the dressing gown, over his bare chest, down to his stomach. Waits. Surely not. Not wearing this.

Oh, yes, wearing this, for sure. Unstructured silk which has had Sherlock's naked skin inside it, his body, his long legs and supple hands and his beautiful -

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Downstairs on the settee, Sherlock tilts his head up towards the ceiling. He thought it would help, and it seems as if it has. Good.

There is a problem, however, two problems in fact. Maybe leading to further problems, which is the precise reason one should never engage in relationships in the first place, although clearly it is too late for that now, they are on this path, he understands that they have been for a long time, and only careful thought will steer them to a destination of minimal pain and disruption -

Firstly, when it needs a wash, Sherlock will have to appropriate the dressing gown, wash it and then wear it, then return it. Should have got two dressing gowns. Maybe give John one of his others while this one is in the wash.

Secondly, if it is Sherlock, rather than silk, which John finds so ... comforting, then why is Sherlock here, downstairs alone? Why is he not upstairs being caressed and moaned over and sobbed into?

In essence, what does the dressing gown have that he does not have? Answer, nothing. He is certainly better than any dressing gown.

He chuckles, and wriggles to get comfortable. John is not having nightmares. Quite the reverse, and now Sherlock too must try to get some sleep.

But sleep is not available. He never factored this in, that he would experience pain, not physical pain of course, although it presents as a knot of discomfort around his navel, but psychological pain, loneliness. Transforms in a heartbeat into desire, swaps back again, impossible to tell if the one has simply led to the other.

He understands very well how being alone can drive a person to seek comfort, to seek physical contact, to seek ... oblivion. All those early mornings walking back to hall, cold, the afterglow already draining away in the light of another day to be spent with nobody like him.

He wanted nothing then. He found it, briefly and often.

He has been wanting nothing again lately, but not the same nothing. Can there be two nothings? A nothing of the absence of anything and a nothing of the presence of nothing?

There can. It is the second thing he seeks. The presence of nothing.

Nothing as experience, as whiteness and emptiness and the creation of a silent place where he can rest, free from thoughts and emotions.

A silent place which lasts.

Impossible.

Thinking has quelled desire, as expected. Good. But it has led to more thinking, and now he is wide awake.

The dressing gown gift was intended as a nurturing thing, not a sexual thing. Fretful babies are sometimes comforted by placing an item of their mother's clothing in the cot. Her scent, the unconscious belief that the mother is close by, helps the child to relax. The wonderful things you can learn from the internet.

He wanted to nurture John in this way and had deduced that his own scent might help. His presence had helped in Avebury. Fact. John's only peaceful night in a long time.

It is hard to smell yourself, so he had to trust that a week of wearing the dressing gown - after showering - had left an imprint.

It was meant to be intimate, not sexual - how he thinks of him and John. But John has taken it and worn it and it has become a thing infused with desire, no doubt of that, and now Sherlock considers it in this light, it is hard to know where intimacy ends and sex begins.

Hard to measure what is happening when the knowledge of - the sound of - John's desire transforms so immediately into his own. For John? He has not thought seriously about that for a long time. Or about desire for anyone.

He is thinking about it now and his heart beats quickly. He rejected this path when he first began to think about attachments. When he first met John, although the temptation was clearly there between them. He already understands that sex and attachment are, not mutually exclusive in general, but certainly not cause and effect. Has never sought that. The one - straightforward, biological, physical, comprehensible. The other - mysterious, intangible, dangerous.

He is attached to John, of course.

He blinks and sits up. Of course. But - desire for someone you are attached to? Really? For other people, yes, yes, obviously - but for him?

It could be awkward and wrong, like incest, like Frankenstein's creature built from desecrated flesh and Frankenstein's own longing.

Or it could be - just him and John, as they have always been.

Could he do sex, with John? Yes, of course, (if John accepted the idea, which it now seems that he might), it would be easy, it is only sex. But John would assign significance to it, in the way that other people do, and this is another reason why Sherlock stopped bothering with sex.

Also it is John, who is a real person. Sherlock has not catalogued his former partners, but almost none of them were real people. Presumably they had lives, thoughts... names.

John is not on that list. He is Sherlock's friend.

What's the difference between love and friendship? How can you tell? Maybe you can't. John's voice.

Physical release plus emotional connection: it is what popular songs, films, books all extol as the pinnacle of interpersonal relationships.

Idolisation of the other person, something Sherlock has never stooped to, is a key component of romantic love. A belief in your lover's infallibility, patently a stupid idea. Sherlock cannot imagine believing another human is perfect. It is a biological impossibity for a start, regardless of any emotional meaning. Or the reverse, their absolute belief in you.

Ok, this is a more plausible scenario. But it would still be misguided to think that he is infallible.

For a start if he was incapable of a misjudgement he wouldn't be lying on a sofa thinking about sex whilst cataloguing reasons why he is not going to engage in any. He can almost hear the Idiot's voice saying this, and for once Sherlock concedes that he would be right. He smiles, somewhat painfully.

Time has passed. John is silent. Asleep? Presumably. Naked? Perhaps. Satiated? He can only ... imagine.

Sherlock flings himself back onto the sofa and composes his robe around him. His hands rest lightly, alertly, on his chest.

Sleep. Just sleep.


	22. Blooms in the brain

There is a film John likes, a Christmas film which he insists on watching at least once a year. Usually but not exclusively at Christmas.

Sherlock assumed this was about fondness for Christmas, a fondness John shares with much of the rest of the population who are able to just stop, switch off, rest in suspended animation for days eating and drinking the prescribed items and engaging in the ritual exchange of items of monetary and supposedly emotional value.

But now Sherlock realises it is not (just) the Christmas-ness which John enjoys, but the film's theme, which is love.

Sherlock heads back to Baker Street one evening, (not Christmas), from an only mildly infuriating meeting with Lestrade, to do with the apparent movement of drugs, money and weapons around London's streets by Eastern European gangs in broad daylight, and a sting operation the police are trying clumsily to implement to draw out the method. It is important, Lestrade says five times over the course of the meeting, that Sherlock does not take any form of initiative with regard to - anything , really, was the gist - in case the operation is compromised. Sherlock said "Yes, yes," and nobody believed him, as if they knew he was no longer listening and was in fact thinking about John, surveillance and prevention of panic attacks.

Sherlock remembers on the way home that he offered - possibly, promised - to pick up dinner tonight. Something about hospital shift patterns, but anyway he has remembered the salient point about food, and decides to get a takeaway from Angelo's, who does not strictly do takeaway unless you ask, and even then it is only if you are Sherlock. And luckily he is.

He arrives home carrying a bag of food plus beer, pretty domestic for him, thinking that John will do his exaggerated amazement face, and they will eat and Sherlock will tell him about the Romanian drug/weapon/money movement thing and observe John for signs of generalised panic disorder. But when he opens the door John is sitting watching this film on DVD (new, plastic film wrapper in the bin) and has already eaten, pasta. What time is it?

"There you are, I was starting to wonder." John sees the bag of food and does a genuine amazement face and Sherlock is momentarily hurt.

John pauses the film, gets up and peers into the bag. Grabs two plates, dishes out unevenly so that he has a token amount - he knows Sherlock knows he's had dinner already - and hands Sherlock the larger helping. "That's tomorrow sorted as well," he says, putting the rest in the fridge.

He does all this to make Sherlock feel better, because he saw that Sherlock was hurt. Saw it and wanted to fix it, even though it was very minor, not a real problem, such as incapacitating panic attacks.

Sherlock has never had anyone interested in his well being at the micro level before. Tiny peaks and troughs in the chemical flow of the day, who cares, it is all simply blooms in the brain scan, pulses and ebbs and everything passes.

John cares though. He is good at that sort of thing. You're looking after me, Sherlock thinks, and that's what you were doing in my room that night. Of course. He has been wondering.

He sits down in his chair with the plate, and John puts a beer by Sherlock's foot and sits back where he was in his own chair, angled towards the telly.

"I'm watching a film," says John superfluously, pressing Play.

Sherlock grunts and acts bored, eats. John smiles at him with just his eyes - pleased he is eating, ready to have a go at him if he stops - and watches the Christmas love film.

Sherlock watches John watching the film. At first he is thinking about the best way to get Mycroft to withdraw (there are several options and all of them involve contact with Mycroft, enough to put anyone off their dinner) but then he becomes interested in John's reaction to the different parts of the film.

John has definite favourite bits. The film is an ensemble piece with many stories woven together. Sherlock usually only sees the plot holes (and then whatever he's reading to stave off the boredom) but tonight he sees John. John loves the story about the man secretly in love with his best friend's fiance, but has mixed feelings about how that ends, with the man declaring love and then walking away. Sherlock can see his point. Pretty sappy. Weak.

John also likes the part where a British Prime Minister gives an off-the-cuff public putdown to an American President. Totally implausible. The man can barely utter without an autocue. Plus, America has economic and military superiority and you would have to be as stupid as this fictional PM patently is to -

"Are you watching this?" John asks.

"Slightly."

"You're subvocalising." John is smirking.

Sherlock holds out another beer.

John's favourite part though is not the part where the film's directors bring on the big music and ramp up the Christmas sentiment to maximum. The kiss at the school play, the declaration of love in terrible Portuguese, these are not what makes John blink and take extra sips of India Pale Ale.

No, it is the part where a handsome, famous, glamorous man abandons a party packed with fawning admirers to spend Christmas with his best friend. Calls him the love of his life. The friend is pleased.

John cannot take his eyes off the screen for this part. Stares as people do when they are trying to let tears drain away naturally without them spilling over the lower eyelid.

Sherlock flicks from John's face to the screen and back. Experiences a realisation which makes his stomach go taut:

He thinks that's us. I'm Bill Nighy - I suppose I am thin - and he is the unappreciated friend sitting sadly in the flat alone, until I turn up and tell him I love him.

Oh. _Oh._

John is tangled up about it. Watches the screen helplessly. Thinks it is sad. And beautiful. But mostly sad, why?

He thinks it is unlikely.

Oh John. You love me. Love me romantically. This isn't about just caring for me, or finding me attractive. This isn't a sex thing at all. It's like the film. It's a love thing.

Sherlock puts his fingers against his mouth, presses, and feels the fortress inside quaking as things shift again.

I didn't know.

Oh John.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: I realise that the Billy Mack and Chubs scene in Love Actually is in fact about platonic love and friendship. But I'm claiming a little poetic licence here and have decided that what John sees when he watches it is love, romantic love, impossible love. Hopeless love! Sigh ... -Thanks for reading, and please, please comment! -Sef


	23. Dolls and drugs

ohn is making notes from the day's work when he gets Sherlock's text. _Meet me at the flat. Corpse._

He sighs, looks around, finishes the notes on the current patient and gets up. Takes off the stethoscope and ID which still hang round his neck, tools of the trade, and grabs his coat. _Corpse._

Sherlock is outside 221B Baker Street when he arrives, leads him around the back of Mrs Hudson's ground floor flat. There is an alley which allows the flats and shops access to the back of the properties. Gates lead into the minuscule back yards of the flats.

Outside the gate to 221B is a dead girl in a black and white checked coat and black leggings, and a small bundle.

John hurries to crouch beside her. Checks for vital signs. Nothing. He spots the bundle, sees a tiny face, and reaches for it in horror.

Sherlock's hand shoots out. "Don't touch it!"

"Jesus, Sherlock!"

"John - it's not a real baby."

"What?"

"It's a doll, and a very valuable one. Don't touch it."

John bends over the swaddled shape. "God. Looks completely real." Eyes closed, real hair eyelashes and eyebrows. He wants to touch it to be sure, but Sherlock's hand is on his arm.

"Have you called the police?"

"Tell me how she died, first."

John looks at Sherlock, pulls latex gloves from his pocket. "You did say 'corpse'," he says, seeing Sherlock's impressed look. He examines the girl as best he can.

John looks at the girl's face. Pale skin, very blonde hair, fine cheekbones. She is thin and looks unwell. Probably drug use although he can't check without touching her. She looks Scandinavian of some flavour. He comments to Sherlock, who says shortly, "Romanian." She is about twenty.

Her face and neck are unmarked. He lifts aside her checked coat and blinks. Takes a breath. The girl has a horrible wound all across her belly, a wound which has been made through her clothes and right into her internal organs. The flesh is ruined, melted, burned.

"Acid, smells like hydrochloric acid", says John, being even more careful now not to touch. "Massive amount of it."

Sherlock nods. "How long would it take her to die, with a wound like this?"

John winces. Calculates. "Not long. Perhaps an hour. At the most."

"She walked here," says Sherlock. He looks up and to the left: accessing memory. Calculating, John guesses, the radius of an hour's walk from this spot with a fatal acid wound to the stomach.

"Slowly," says John. "She would have been in a lot of pain." He grimaces. She was so young. What was she mixed up in to earn such a grisly death?

"Yes."

Sherlock is looking uncomfortable. He stares at the girl, then pulls out his phone. "Detective Inspector Lestrade, please."

As soon as he finishes the call he is off, striding to the end of the alley and peering about. "Aren't we going to wait for the police" asks John.

"No time. We need to find where she walked from."

Sherlock hesitates, then says, "Have you got a bag on you?"

John pulls lab bags from his coat pocket. Ever the Boy Scout.

"Thanks." Sherlock hesitates again. "We're taking the doll," he says at last, and quickly bends and scoops it up. Some raw instinct leads him to hold the thing as if it is a real child, and John gets a chill which runs straight from stomach to legs. "Here." Sherlock drops the doll into the bag John is holding open. It is shockingly heavy, like an actual baby. Several pounds, maybe as many as seven or eight.

Sherlock bends to the ground, straightens again, and says, "This way." His mouth twitches and he blinks, frowns, turns it to a full on scowl.

It only takes John a moment to realise they are following a trail of blood. Blood and acid, and Sherlock is upset.

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"You knew her," says John as they hurry along, conspicuously stopping every few yards to check the trail.

"Yes. No. I spoke to her. I - gave her money."

John thinks back. "She was begging outside the flat."

"Yes. I noticed the way she was holding the apparent baby. She never looked at it, not once. Even if it is sleeping, a baby still moves about and needs adjusting." John is giving him a strange look. "Observation, John."

"Right." The vision of Sherlock holding a baby disturbs John deeply for reasons he cannot pinpoint.

"I went to talk to her and she wouldn't let me see the baby. Said it was asleep. I knew she was lying but she wouldn't tell me anything else, why she was begging on the street with a pretend baby. I thought it was just the latest begging scam, all the pathos without the real inconvenience of a child."

Sherlock is walking, eyes everywhere but on Johns face.

"Then I realised that she could help us with the Mycroft situation. I paid her to tell me if she saw anybody watching the flat. She sat there all day, had plenty of opportunity to notice."

He stops as they lose the trail, spins around in frustration , coat tails flaring. "They must have been watching," he says. "Saw me talk to her and now she's dead."

There is no more blood.

"Where did she come from, where, where," mutters Sherlock.

"Are you saying Mycroft did this?" John asks.

Sherlock whirls round to face him, surprised. "No."

"Sorry." Sometimes he forgets that Mycroft is real, and related to Sherlock.

"No, I mean, this isn't his style, he prefers to be more discreet." Sherlock waves this away.

"Right. Nice to know your flatmate's brother has a distinctive murdering style."

"Not funny, John."

"Sorry. So who?"

"Whoever was paying her to sit there begging with a fake baby. And I'm afraid I know who that might be."

"Who?"

In answer, Sherlock takes his arm and draws him into a narrow lane between two office buildings. He looks around, then gestures for the bag containing the doll, which John has been carrying tucked inside his jacket.

John hands it over. Sherlock flexes his fingers inside his black gloves, then takes out a knife. With the doll still in the bag, he swipes the knife across its body. Cracks it open like an Easter egg. "Ah. It's what I thought. This is not good."

Inside the doll is a clear plastic bag, packed solidly with bright white powder.

"Oh," says John.

He and Sherlock exchange a look. "Exactly," says Sherlock. "Oh."

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A network of women on the streets of London, moving drugs deliveries openly from place to place.

John and Sherlock are walking briskly now, Sherlock scanning through options on the satnav on his phone.

"A women's drugs network. It's kind of a nasty form of feminism," says John grimly.

"Not really. Those girls will be abused by the men really running the operation. And have you wondered what happened to their real babies?"

"Don't. Just stop." Images John does not want in his head. "What are we going to do about it?"

Sherlock draws back his lips in a predatory smile. "We're going to find them, and take their dolls away."

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They reach the massive flyover which leads ultimately to the M4 motorway, but at this end, in town, just forms an ugly concrete marker of the end of the true city and the start of the suburbs. John regards it glumly. "Now what?"

"It's here somewhere. A warehouse for a legitimate business, called, if I'm right, LifeLike Limited. Sells dolls." he sees John's disbelief. "The dolls are a luxury item in themselves. They can retail for thousands of pounds. Of course in druglord terms this is small change. An import company brings them into the UK, probably supplies genuine customers too." He must have been doing some serious Googling as they walked.

"Hang on. Who are these genuine customers? Footballers' kids?"

"No. Mostly grown women. They collect them. Some women set up a nursery, cot, keep them as if they are real babies."

"That's very weird."

"Is it? I don't know."

"Believe me, it's weird." A reminder that Sherlock has no real appreciation of how a normal person's mind might work. John cannot claim expertise but is pretty sure that playing with dolls is supposed to run out once you are past twelve years old. You have other things in your life beyond that. Or maybe you don't.

"This is it."

A drab warehouse. "Why is it always a warehouse?"

"Because we are always dealing with supply and demand operations," says Sherlock.

"Of course."

"Come on."

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They sneak in through a fire exit door and wander around avoiding the few workers who are mostly on the picking and packing floor. Sherlock sees a door into a smaller storage area and draws John inside, closes the door.

Inside there are boxes. Sherlock tears one open and sees a doll, this one with open eyes and a smile. John is shocked again by how real it looks. He picks it up and it is heavy, heavy like a real child would be.

"They weight them," Sherlock says. "You can actually specify the weight, hair and eye colour, and any distinguishing marks of the child you are asking them to reproduce."

"Wait," says John, "What do you mean reproduce?"

"People sometimes buy them after a child has died," says Sherlock.

"Oh God." He puts the doll back quickly. "This is totally creepy. Now what do we do?"

"Find the ones which are used to move drugs around. Easier once the legitimate workers have gone home. Might have to wait here for a bit."

They sink to the floor of the storage room and wait.

At last Sherlock, who has been listening, nods, and they step out into the now deserted packing area.

"Look for dolls not in boxes. The drugs ones won't need fancy packaging."

They find a stack of dolls next to a bench laden with bottles and pipettes. Sherlock slits open the topmost doll and finds more packages of powder. He nods, turns to the pipettes and bottles. "Etching," says Sherlock. He picks up a small bottle carefully. "Acid. They mark the dolls - tag them for tracking. Like a barcode. Or maybe," he add s thoughtfully, "they do it to the women. Kind of an incentive."

"I see your mind is as practical as mine," says a voice with great satisfaction.

Sherlock and John turn round and see a bald, stocky man in thick black-rimmed glasses, with two other men with matching skinheads but different scalp tattoos, standing just behind him. The stocky man is holding a pistol.

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Sherlock begins to speak and the stocky man with glasses smacks him in the face with the gun. He ducks but still catches the end of the blow. He staggers, reaching up to feel if his nose, his eyes, are OK. There is blood.

He looks at the men. The first thug has a tattoo of a skull on his skull. Unimaginative in the extreme. The other one has a swan. Or it might be a duck. The work is very poor, probably prison work. There are other tattoos on the henchmen's arms and hands too, and these Sherlock recognises as gang marks. A name - Grigore - is visible on the wrist of the glasses-wearing man. Grigore. Romanian, although he speaks with a London accent. Drugs and Romanian gangs. Once again he has done Lestrade's work for him.

On the down side, these people have just given one of their workers a slow and violent death. They will shoot him and John, unless he can think of something.

"It's you we want," says Grigore. "She told me. Holmes, isn't it. You paid her. Kill the other one." The stocky man gestures and Skull-tattoo grabs John.

"No," says Sherlock, trying to step between them and John.

He is pushed roughly aside. The gun is raised, pointed in John's face.

John stands still and never takes his eyes off Sherlock.

"He is my boyfriend," says Sherlock in a pleading tone. "At least let me say goodbye."

"Your kind make me sick," says Grigore. "Maybe we should give it to him rough, show your boyfriend a good time"

Skull and Swan laugh nastily.

"Please," says Sherlock, his voice cracking.

With an expression of disgust Grigore nods upwardly. "There'll be two less of your sort in the world very soon, that's one consolation."

Sherlock steps to John, takes John's left hand in both of his own, squeezes hard. There are tears in his eyes. "John," he says, and leans in and kisses John's mouth, murmurs in a low deep voice against his lips.

John's eyes are wide - looks at Sherlock. It is understood.

Sherlock steps back, letting John's hand fall slowly, reluctantly.

The man raises the gun.

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John feels Sherlock place a small item in his hand, tuck it in, wrap his fingers around John's to conceal it. The bottle of acid from the etching table. He looks into Sherlock's eyes, sees what to do. Very carefully uncorks the bottle with his fingers.

Sherlock comes close, presses his lips to John's, says in a low voice, "Use it, man on the left, I'll take the others, count of three." John blinks a nod, gazes into Sherlock's eyes.

Sherlock lets go slowly of John's hand and as he does, his fingers are counting - one, two, three -

John throws the acid into the face of Skull tattoo, spraying Swan with the residue. Follows straight up with a charge as Sherlock whirls and fells Grigore with an elbow and foot then instantly grabs Swan in a choke hold.

The gun goes off into the ceiling. A light shatters.

John has Skull tattoo pinned to the concrete floor and has knocked him unconscious. His face is burning.

Between them they disable the other two.

"He's in a bad way," says John matter of factly, of Skull tattoo.

"We'll call an ambulance when we get home," says Sherlock. He is holding his hand awkwardly.

"You've got some on you," says John. "Let me see." He glances around, drags Sherlock towards a door marked Toilet. Basically forces him to run his hand under the tap, neutralising the acid. Sherlock fights him a little, trying to call Lestrade while John is doing it.

"They're coming," he says afterwards. "Lestrade is not pleased. He thinks I interfered with his sting operation."

"You did."

"Not on purpose."

"That's all right then."

They look at each other and smile.

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They are outside, in the breeze, litter blowing about in the car park, cars roaring over the flyover above. John has gone back to throw water on the man whose face he damaged, and is now more than ready for the fresh air again. No sign of the police yet.

Sherlock is on the phone again.

John can see that his hand is hurting him. He is holding his phone with his left hand. Looks at John while he is talking on the phone. John can see the pain, how Sherlock is holding it in. He's seen men like that, soldiers, so strong they could ignore a wound until the battle was over. Sherlock is a soldier of a different kind, and thank God, the wound is not a mortal one.

God, he loves him. It is his face he would wish to see in his final moments. He knows this now, has known it for a long time.

Sherlock is speaking. John recognises that scathing tone. Mycroft.

"Call off your surveillance or I will -" He stops.

"You'll what?" says Mycroft's voice, cool and calm as ever on the other end. John pictures his supercilious face.

"I will never speak to you again," says Sherlock. He is so angry but also defeated.

"Promises, promises," chuckles Mycroft.

Sherlock cuts the connection, looks at John.

"I know," says John. "There's nothing we can do about him, is there."

"Not right now." Sherlock winces. Touches his cheek gingerly. Dried blood there.

"Come here," says John. He puts his right arm round Sherlock, supports him.

"You did well," Sherlock says. "The acid."

John shrugs, makes a non committal noise. Praise from Sherlock is so rare that he never has an answer ready.

"I thought you might freak out," Sherlock says. "When I kissed you."

 _No,_ John thinks, _I will freak later, replaying you saying those words so casually. When I kissed you..._

He shrugs again. "They teach you how to withstand torture, in the army," he says, and Sherlock looks at him, impressed again for some reason, then laughs and gasps in pain. He snakes his left arm around John's waist and grips John's left hand tightly. John gives him a squeeze back, shaking his head. "Dolls and drugs," he says. "Only you would make that connection."

That is how they are standing when the police cars arrive.

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Sherlock, in the back of a cab, his hand bandaged with a dressing from the medical kit in Lestrade's car, keeps glancing at John.

His fearlessness, his stolidity under pressure, are amazing. Sherlock feels a wreck, and he has not had a firearm thrust under his chin. And John was still able to respond, to follow a plan, at a second's notice. Truly remarkable.

Sherlock calls up a mental catalogue of the times he has seen John in situations like this. It is a long list, a list you might expect to span several lifetimes. Not once has John cracked, not once has he let Sherlock down.

Not once.

How does he do it? He cannot think as Sherlock does, but has the ability to comprehend the entirety of a perilous situation in one glance.

Remarkable.

Sherlock almost never thanks him. He ought to. And often.

Especially -

No. There is no especially. John's personal thoughts do not influence Sherlock's actions.

Sherlock grimaces out of the window. He cannot tell that big a lie to himself.

More thanking. There will be more thanking. Especially now that Sherlock knows.

He knows, and he sort of understands. He thinks he is beginning to understand more about a lot of things, lately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: The dolls are real and have featured in several of my original fiction stories. I don't think they have ever been used for drug smuggling though. Real methods were too horrific to include here. Poetic licence has also been applied to the scale of the walk from the end of Baker Street along the Euston road to the flyover, and what is under the flyover.


	24. Nothing

John is crouching on the floor opposite Sherlock. Behind Sherlock stand Lestrade's forensic team, in silence on pain of Sherlock's wrath, and between John and Sherlock is the body of a middle ranking civil servant who for some reason has died here, in an outdoors equipment shop, overnight.

John looks up. "I know it doesn't make much sense, but cause of death appears to be salt poisoning."

Sherlock clicks his fingers together. "Of course!" His eyes flicker as he thinks through all the answers this statement gives him. "That was brilliant, thank you, John."

John becomes aware of Lestrade, Anderson, Donovan staring at the back of Sherlock's head, their gaze gradually transferring to John's face to see his reaction to the miracle.

"Just my two penn'orth," says John, climbing to his feet. "Hope it helped."

"You've given me the connection I needed," says Sherlock. He actually leans forward and claps John on the shoulder.

"Shagging," mutters Donovan.

Lestrade clears his throat over the top of her remark. "Yeah, thanks John, great work."

He does not see the poisonous look Sherlock shoots him, for this.

"No problem," says John. He needs to get Sherlock out of here before anyone else expresses gratitude.

There have been a lot of thank yous lately. John first noticed it one evening last week at the flat, when Sherlock stopped - lifted his head from where he was examining Italian wool fibres under the microscope - and thanked John for the cup of coffee. He even took a sip straightaway. For a surreal moment John thought he was going to say Mmm, lovely coffee, but he just put the cup down and carried on frowning at the slide and John, shocked, sat and did not read his paper.

Since then there have been several incidents, each of them so unusual in the history of his life with Sherlock that John is in full mental breakdown alert. It is just so out of character.

It is not that he thinks Sherlock is usually ungrateful. He is simply busy, preoccupied, absorbed. John is sure Sherlock appreciates the coffees, the cooking, the remembering to actually switch on the washing machine, and all those other domestic things which John does. And when they are working, no words are needed to know that this is a partnership, each relying on the other in moments of crisis.

To be thanked, effusively and suddenly, is unnerving.

He doesn't mind so much being thanked for specific things to do with work. Cause of death, yes, that I can assist you with. Wounds, trauma, disease, toxins, medicines, all very much up my alley and you can be as grateful as you like, Sherlock. I did do four years at medical school plus combat medicine so it's nice to know my brain is not as feeble as you sometimes make me think.

Although this is a first, a big thank you in front of Greg and the forensic team, and they are all clearly as gobsmacked by it as John was the first time.

For once he does not begrudge Donovan the nasty comment. She must need some reason to explain the change. He certainly doesn't have one.

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Sherlock hesitated over the hug for a long time - a long time for him - before deciding to do it, and now he almost regrets it.

He's mastered verbal gratitude and it is becoming a habit. It takes up very little time and not a great deal of effort and the hardest part is remembering to be aware that John is in the room because sometimes John goes out when Sherlock is right in the middle of a piece of work and he genuinely has no idea what time it is when he next looks up. John may have been in and out the entire time but Sherlock does not know. To cover himself he simply gives John a pleasant nod when he does spot him.

Cups of coffee do still appear from nowhere, so clearly he isn't managing it a hundred percent of the time. But John is used to this, anyway. He knows Sherlock cannot think about other things when he is working.

John's face the first time was disturbing. Total disbelief.

He supposes he can seem a bit cold at times. It is just his way. Saves time. If you build up a public persona which involves any tolerance of other people's minutiae you will never get anything done.

But John - John clearly thinks something is wrong, for Sherlock to be thanking him.

This makes Sherlock simultaneously self conscious and more determined. Hence the hug.

It was not in public - he has no desire to receive one of Mycroft's hilarious envelopes, containing grainy surveillance footage of him embracing John in the street - but just in their flat. Evening. Semi bed time, that is, the time they both knew that John at least ought to go to bed because he has a job to get up for in the morning, and John starts procrastinating because of the wretched nightmares. Which are still evidently persisting despite the dressing gown.

John has never said anything about the dressing-gown, but wears it every night, in bed, and wears nothing else when he does. He has not noticed that there are now two identical dressing gowns. Sherlock wears the other one around the house after his shower, during the day when John is out. It cheers him up, actually.

Truthfully, it may do a little more for him than that. It is a little ego boost, not that he really needs that, and it makes him feel as if John is close by even when he will be out for tedious hours. He has a suspicion that his own proposed cure is working better on himself than on John. That John, seeming close through his own scent, is soothing Sherlock, instead of the other way round. But like loneliness/ desire/ loneliness, it is impossible to be objective about, and so he sets it aside.

The hug was awkward and unsuccessful. He had intended it to be spontaneous and jolly, a mere moment between friends but the moment was difficult to select, and John had had a bad day at work. So had Sherlock, for that matter – a strange and ordinary death which did not make any sense, who would murder a payroll clerk in Whitehall and then bother to make it seem like an accident, a fall down some stairs at her flat? Yet clearly someone did, but Sherlock cannot see the murderer in his imagined web of logic.

John walked through the door at half ten in the evening, a late shift, dropping his coat onto the sofa, and saw Sherlock, bunched up in the Corbusier chair. He said, "All right?" and Sherlock stood up and crossed the room in one move and wrapped his arms round John and hugged him.

John said, "OK. Sherlock. Are you OK?" and then Sherlock was embarrassed, let go, turned away and said, "Rotten day," as a reason to give John for it all, and sat in the kitchen with his head in the microscope, leaving John standing with his hands spread and his mouth open.

Awkward.

There were some positives though. One was that John, even surprised, was warm and giving. He hugged Sherlock back instinctively, without even knowing why they were hugging in the first place. That gave Sherlock a tremor inside. John did not even care why they were hugging. It didn't matter to him. He put his arms round Sherlock and let his head drop against his shoulder and only after a moment or two started asking questions.

Sherlock knows why John behaves in this way, but why it touches Sherlock so much is another matter for thought.

Sherlock draws into himself after that, to think. Not about John, specifically, although that is settling in his mind too, like underwater masonry, an ancient stone pillar dropping through blue water from an archaeological boat, back to the white sand of the seabed where it belongs... No, it is work, he needs to understand what is happening, he can see a pattern in these recent deaths but cannot yet fully discern its shape or meaning.

He lies on the sofa in his/John's dressing gown and shuts his eyes and thinks.

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It is time to speak.

Sherlock has been withdrawn and distant these last few days and John is worried that it is to do with him, Mycroft, or the wretched love thing, in that order. Whatever it is, Sherlock seems unwilling to get up and get dressed or do anything normal.

John is a little sleep deprived himself, but at least he makes it into bed each night. Sherlock is on the sofa when John finally goes up, and on the sofa when he gets back down in the mornings. Sometimes he is asleep, and the John pulls the blanket over him, his heart pained by Sherlock's isolation, down here on the settee. He thinks of Avebury, every single time that happens. Sherlock wrapped round him, stopping the nightmares.

Those are not the actions of a sociopath.

Tonight Sherlock is silent as usual, brooding in his chair as John eats dinner, clears up, sits down, watches five minutes of something intolerable on the box, reads a bit of the paper. Sherlock has barely moved, just sits hunched and distant.

John puts down the newspaper, leans forward to Sherlock, sitting cross legged and frowning in the chair opposite. John's movement makes Sherlock stir, refocus his eyes and look at him.

John speaks. "Do you trust me?"

"In everything."

John takes Sherlock's hand, examines it closely, looks at Sherlock. Kisses the back of his hand, scarred by the acid, with great affection and lets go. "I am a doctor. There is nothing wrong with you. I live with you and see you every day and night. There is nothing wrong with you. I am your friend and I see you at best and worst. There is nothing wrong with you. I - don't take this the wrong way - I love you. There is nothing wrong with you."

"I would never take that the wrong way." In a low voice.

"Good. There is nothing wrong with you. Please stop trying to prove to yourself that there is. It is making you unhappy." Pause. "It is making me unhappy, to see you like this."

"John. You mustn't be unhappy about me. It is not necessary."

"Well, stop this stupid whatever it is then. Then everything will be all right again."

Pause.

Sherlock reaches for John's hand and holds it, fingers sliding between John's so that they are entwined. John breathes in sharply at the sensation, and sees Sherlock notice, curses and tries to suppress a blush.

Sherlock says quietly, "Thank you."

He lets go and abruptly gets up.

"Going out?"

"Yes."

Coat on, turns back. "John."

John looks up.

Sherlock has his chin up, is being brave about something, looking John in the eye. There is a quaver about him which John has rarely seen.

"I -"

Sherlock never hesitates.

"-Nothing."

He stares at John, eyes shimmering, the quiver very near the surface.

Then it is gone, Sherlock turns and is out the door.

Well. That was something.

"I need a beer," says John.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note:'Mmm, lovely coffee' is a cliched catchphrase from a coffee ad starring Anthony Stewart Head in the mid eighties, which John would obviously remember. The ads were groundbreaking - among the first to use a storyline to thread the parts of the campaign together - and hugely successful. If Benedict were to voice some 'Mmm, lovely coffee' ads right now I expect the brand would be terribly popular once again.


	25. Boundaries

The payroll clerk was pushed down a set of polished oak steps, but was found at the foot of her own polyester carpeted stairs. The civil servant in the camping shop was meant to look as if he had had a heart attack, but his renal system had been wrecked by a massive overdose of salt. A long term poisoning, because a single oral dose large enough to damage you, would make you vomit.

Sherlock walks the police through these basic facts - runs with them, actually, since these are conclusions which should have been reached on day one - and then asks the question which everyone seems keen to avoid: what links these two deaths? Whitehall. Government. But no one is pursuing this, because Government employs thousands of people in London and statistically a few are likely to die around the same time, at any time.

"But these were murders," says Sherlock. "Murders which were made to look like accidents." He stares piercingly at Lestrade. "You suspected this, or you wouldn't have asked for my help."

Lestrade shuffles in an uncharacteristically apologetic way. "Well, I might have been wrong."

"But you weren't. They are murders. Why aren't you investigating?"

Sherlock and Lestrade, almost nose to nose in Lestrade's office.

"Did their work overlap?" John asks getting in between them. "Or their social lives?" Lestrade is shaking his head. "Then could it be two unrelated murders? Not everything has to be a serial killer."

Sherlock gives him a scornful glance. "It's not a serial killer."

"Ok," says John, "so tell us what you think it is."

"Well," says Sherlock, "there is an overlap of evidence -"

He stops. The Italian wool fibres. Of course. Found at both scenes.

"Sherlock?" says John.

Sherlock looks up. "What? Oh. No, a wrong line of thinking. I'll have to come up with a different theory." This is the plain truth.

"Right," says Lestrade. "So you've got nothing for us?"

"Nothing," says Sherlock. "Come on, John."

He escapes and stands motionless in thought on the kerb outside New Scotland Yard until John hails them a cab.

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When they arrive home Sherlock goes into his bedroom claiming a headache, shuts the door and does not reply to an offer of tea.

John shrugs. Sherlock being Sherlock. He stretches out on the sofa, which makes a change, and prepares himself for the next chapter of his book, in the full knowledge that it might end up as a nap instead of a read because of the steady build up of sleep deprivation over the past few weeks.

He is getting comfortable when he feels a lump under the cushions. Pushes his hand into the sofa and feels silk. Draws out his navy dressing gown, the one Sherlock gave him.

Sherlock has borrowed it, the cheeky beggar. Well, he does just help himself to anything of John's he takes a fancy to, or which is nearer than Sherlock's own possessions - phone, laptop, and now, apparently, dressing gown.

Or maybe this is a time when he has appropriated it for re-inoculation. John holds the silk to his face. No, definitly not straight from the wash. It smells of John. Fine, he'll just have it back as it is...

Sherlock has no concept of boundaries. John has a pretty strong sense of same. His eternal downfall. He grimaces and closes his eyes.

Opens them some time later with a gasp and a yell, finds himself on the floor, heart pounding, eyes staring.

Sherlock appears and crouches beside him with a concerned expression. He brings John a terrible cup of tea and does not drink the one he made for himself. After a bit John gets up and makes himself a decaff coffee.

When he comes back to sit down next to Sherlock, he is feeling normal again after the nightmare. But the dressing gown has vanished, typical.

No boundaries.

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Sherlock will do this. John will accept it. That is all.

He turns his thoughts from the list of John's possible reactions. There is one potential consequence which sets his heart racing in a mixture of fear and excitement, but other reactions, given John's habits of secrecy and control, are more probable.

He stands, holds out his hand to John. "Come with me. No questions."

John gives Sherlock his hand willingly, a quizzical look on his face.

"Sleep in my bed tonight," says Sherlock, drawing John in that direction. "With me," he adds, in case this was not obvious. "No more nightmares."

John's hand jerks in his. "I'm fine Sherlock," he says, but allows himself to be pulled into Sherlock's room.

"I'll leave you to it for a moment," Sherlock says with an odd note of formality, and shuts the bedroom door, going into his bathroom. The luxury of en suite, never more than a footstep from a shower.

John is still standing fully clothed next to the bed when Sherlock emerges in his dressing gown. His arms are folded. "What's going on," he asks, sounding angry and uncertain.

"I'm not propositioning you," says Sherlock. "But I am asking you to sleep with me in my bed, in the literal sense. Will you?"

"Why now?" says John. He has the look of a man who expects a very good answer.

"Because I can prevent the nightmares," says Sherlock with slight pride, "and I want you to sleep." John has not said No, he notices.

He waits, and watches John's face.

Nothing. Total control. John's hands are steady in their folded arm configuration. Legs strong and still. Nothing.

John looks at him and Sherlock cannot read his expression at all. God, all this time. He could never have guessed if John had not given himself away in Avebury. But he has gathered the evidence since then, and now, knowing the truth, and seeing it completely concealed - amazing.

Arousing, actually.

"Ok," says John. He unfolds his arms and pulls off his jumper, shirt, begins to undo his belt, all the while watching Sherlock's face.

Sherlock finds it increasingly uncomfortable. John's gaze is steadily on him, moving from Sherlock's eyes, which he examines with great intensity, down to Sherlock's mouth and back again. Sherlock feels his mouth watering, swallows, licks his lips.

Nothing from John. No expression on his face whatsoever. It would be frightening if it were not utterly erotic.

John pulls off his belt and lets it clatter to the floor. Very slowly unbuttons his trousers. Very slowly unzips.

Sherlock cannot move. Must not. He stares at John, now just in plain white T shirt and grey jersey trunks, and is frozen.

John suddenly relaxes and grins, laughs aloud at Sherlock's startlement. "See," he says with a chuckle, kicking his clothes aside and making for the bed. "Not so funny when someone does it to you, is it?"

Oh God.

Sherlock is warm and trembling all over. John is so strong. So... strong.

John is sprawled on the left hand side of the bed, leaving Sherlock the near side. "So, what, all you want is for me to sleep?" he says with a smile of great wickedness.

Sherlock climbs into his own bed feeling like a guest. Lies on his back next to John. "Sleep," he says, not succeeding at all in keeping the tremor from his voice.

"Ok," says John cheerfully. He is propped on his right elbow looking down at Sherlock and it strikes Sherlock that this is not the pose of a timid person, but someone accustomed to getting what he wants. _In bed_ , Sherlock thinks deliberately, making everything worse.

John must have noticed - how can he not? - but remains inscrutable.

Sherlock stares at John, feeling an increasing urge to kiss him (for a start) and gain control, return the situation to normal. But John's face is so open and unruffled that Sherlock suspects he will never totally have the advantage over John, in this.

Cannot believe he is even thinking this.

John gives a long blink and says, "Night then," and rolls away.

Sherlock lies still, attempting to regain rational thought. It is always a down side of sexual engagement. Loss of blood supply to the brain. A joke. Yet true.

John rolls back suddenly and says, "Thank you." He leans over Sherlock and pauses. Sherlock actually sees the _Sod It!_ light go on in John's eyes. Then John bends and kisses Sherlock lightly on the lips. "You're completely mad, but thank you."

He flops back onto his other side and lies still, ready for sleep.

Sherlock lies speechless and eventually licks John's taste from his lips - coffee, sour cherries. It is lucky he never planned to sleep anyway because now he really can't.


	26. Those dreams don't end with sleep

Sherlock points his face at Lestrade in the Two-Whitehall-Deaths-And We-Are-Completely-Flummoxed briefing, sets his mind to pick out key words and nod, then drifts off, thinking about last night.

The kissing has made everything more complicated. Sherlock has done kissing, of course, people expect it and it is one of the physical preludes to intercourse that assists with completion of the act itself.

But John kissing him, however fleetingly, has changed everything.

John leaning forward, confident, amused and affectionate. Close, a marvellous closeness and trust. John, a real person who Sherlock knows very well and admires. Then, John calculating and then deciding to do it. What factor made him decide? Did he realise that Sherlock - now certainly and definitively - wanted to?

Sherlock now does not know why he didn't grab John there and then and -

Ok, what? Many options and all rejected as inappropriate.

Has he gained John's habit of self denial, pointless, stupid self denial?

He knows he thinks often about John kissing him. That and the hair stroking.

What next?

There must be a next.

Lestrade's voice says opinions, speculations, feelings. No new facts, good. Sherlock feels connections solidifying in his mind, a certainty about many events, events which began with Theresa and have led him through Avebury and Romanian doll-drug-smuggling to near-depression and civil service murders and now here.

He must get home and find out what else was happening, outside the circle, that night he and John were in Avebury.

And when all that is resolved, he will do something about him and John.

Him and John. A concept which now exists like a fact.

Lestrade has stopped speaking and Sherlock refocuses, looks around. People are looking at him curiously, and Sherlock notices that he has unsettled everyone in the room by smiling.

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John is at work, mechanically signing repeat prescriptions and updating patient records with the activity. The surgery is closed to patients now but there is plenty of supporting admin which needs doing. John has deliberately picked the most mindless task he can come up with because his head is all over the place after last night.

Oh God, he kissed him. It seemed like a good idea at the time: a frivolous kiss, in his mind, a bit like the kind of kisses mates give each other after too many pints: I love you mate, I really lurve you...

But now he thinks of the look he gave Sherlock, the tenderness, the way he thanked him for inviting him into his bed... it is mortifying. What must Sherlock think? Possibly, that it is John who has gone a little insane.

That whole striptease business too...it was funny, but ... now he's completely conflicted about it. He is glad to have got his own back on Sherlock for the outrageous, seductive dancing. But he undressed provocatively, in front of his best friend, who was only trying to help, and oh, God, all over again.

And then the actual being in bed. Pretty much naked. It gives him chills both good and bad to recall it. Sherlock, wrapped only in a sheer layer of red silk. Him in his T shirt and boxers. He has dreamed about this and those dreams don't end with sleep. Sherlock's hair on the pillow close to John's head. His long legs stretched out beside John.

But when he woke up this morning Sherlock was crunched up on the very edge of the bed with his back to John, looking tense. He was asleep - never the world's earliest riser - but John took one look and thought that as much as he longed to touch him, even just his forehead, the ultimate non sexual location for a caress - it still overstepped, way overstepped, the line from Probably Ok into Outright Violation. He remained on his side of the bed for a moment and then got up. Stood looking down at Sherlock asleep and so much wanted to touch him, kiss him good morning, tell him ... anything. Anything true.

But he didn't, because Sherlock already existed on a knife edge of turmoil and he didn't need John adding to the strain.

But now John can't stop thinking about it, his lips on Sherlock's and Sherlock's face - stunned, not a face John gets to see very often, actually rendered speechless by John's audacity, and then John moved so quickly back to his side of the bed that Sherlock had no time to show him any other kind of reaction.

What if he had not stopped? What if he had given Sherlock a chance to react?

Then he would know the truth by now and it would all be over. His sweet fantasies of a joyful moment in which Sherlock allowed himself to be kissed, touched, undressed ... made love to ... Those would end in a flash when Sherlock said, in his usual flat manner, that he was not interested. It wouldn't matter then that Sherlock did not mean it personally, but it would make John's secret thoughts unforgivable, prohibited. He might have to move out rather than pretend he has somehow magically stopped loving Sherlock. It is better to be able to deny he has ever imagined anything, certainly never him and Sherlock naked, declarations of love, promises.

But Sherlock might -

Might have what? Gone along with it. Quite possibly. Whether out of compassion for John's obvious need, or just for friendship's sake, or simply, as demonstrated on the dance floor, because he could.

John doesn't like any of those options. And you can't make someone react in the way you wish they would.

Hell, he is not even completely sure that Sherlock likes men. He has just been assuming this is his preference... although to be honest, those many lovers that Theresa was asking him about - Sherlock never said which gender they were. Kind of implied there was a sprinkling of both sexes in his lothario past.

That would be like Sherlock, to be indifferent to the container, only interested in the mind. Or would it?

Because... This part he can't bear either to think about or not think about. Because Sherlock seemed turned on by it. John could see it in his face, in the dilated pupils, could hear and see his quickened breathing. The undressing in particular: John surprised him and he liked that. Another reason why the fantasy relationship between them could never work - endless pressure to be interesting. And with Sherlock, you knew that the same thing would never work twice. But last night, unless he was very much mistaken, which was unlikely given how little either of them were wearing, he had caught Sherlock out and ... excited him.

Does it mean anything?

He just doesn't know, and it is killing him.

He signs the last prescription and instead of placing them in the secretary's tray, locks them in his desk for re-checking tomorrow morning. God knows what he has been doing for the last hour, but concentrating is not it.


	27. Cheetah mind

John arrives back at the flat and puts the kettle on. The place is strewn with books and newspapers, so many newspapers. John sees dates covering the last three months. Sherlock's music stand is next to the window: he has been playing, and thinking. John has missed it by being out at work, which is good if Sherlock played discordant anger, and bad if he played those slow, searing pieces which John loves. He suspects Sherlock composes more than he lets on.

There is a camping catalogue and a stack of wage slips on the kitchen table, plus many mugs still half full of cold tea. Everything is standard and there is no call for panic about the kissing.

"Sherlock-? Sherlock! Cup of tea?"

"Yes please." A call from the bathroom. Sherlock then emerges, white shirt sleeves rolled up, holding a microscope slide. He looks rumpled, tired, but pleased.

"You moved the microscope into the bathroom?"

"Yes. More light." He puts the slide down on the kitchen table in such a way that John will not now be able to tidy anything around it.

John sighs lightly. "Of course." He pushes the mug of tea across the chaos of the table to Sherlock. Neither of them has made eye contact yet but it has to happen some time. "Did Lestrade have any news?"

"No, luckily. The cases are stagnating. I expect after a bit more floundering around on the part of the police, they'll be abandoned." Sherlock sips tea, standing in the kitchen and staring at nothing. "Actually, they might even be regraded back to suicides and accidents." His eyes glitter. "Especially with a bit of help."

"But we know they're murders."

"Two of them are. The third one actually is a suicide, but no one seems very interested in the reason behind it."

John picks up his coffee and heads through to his chair. Flicks the TV on, just for background. He is shattered. Thank God it's the weekend tomorrow. He could use a break, and a lie in. (Don't think about Sherlock's bed. Just - don't.)

Sherlock sits opposite John, looks at the TV, glances away, wraps his hands around his mug and stares into the coffee.

There is a pause, during which they settle into their usual positions. It's nice. A bit of sexual angst notwithstanding, John wouldn't swap this for anything.

Sherlock says, "We're going to see Mycroft tomorrow. At his ... country retreat." Withering tone.

"He has a country retreat."

"Yes. Well, so do I actually." A twitch of the lips as if he is reluctant to utter something unpleasant, or painful. "It was our parents' house."

He has never said anything about his family. Not once. "OK."

"We'll be away overnight," Sherlock says. "Not there. I don't stay there. I can book us ... a room 's perfect, actually, there's something I want to show you when all this is over. The case. I mean."

Sherlock, stumbling?

John heard Sherlock say, book a room, as in, one room, and briefly considers querying this. But honestly, what would be the point? What Sherlock wants, Sherlock gets. It's not as if John has any fundamental objections. Just some possible self restraint issues. Which are non issues. He is the most together person he knows. No issues, no risk of further embarrassment. Put the lid back on.

"Have you solved the case?" he asks instead.

"Not yet," says Sherlock. "Soon."

John nods, and turns the telly up to hear the news. It's dull, dull, political wranglings, but it damps down all the unsaid words in his head.

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The news ends. Sherlock has been watching it with an eyebrow raised. His superior I know more than any of you morons face.

John turns the TV off and makes to stand up, but Sherlock outstretches a hand in a gesture of Wait.

"John, I will need your help. Tomorrow."

"Ok, what?" John settles back again.

"I need you to distract Mycroft while I ransack his wardrobe."

"OK..." John's turn with the raised eyebrows.

"Just keep him busy for a few minutes until I arrive. Talk to him." Sherlock waves a hand dismissively.

"Right. What about?"

"I expect he will lead the conversation. He usually does." Sherlock makes a face.

"That's true. Never about anything I want to talk to him about though."

"No."

They grimace at each other briefly, united in their disdain for Mycroft.

"Won't he wonder why you're not with me?" John asks.

"No, after all, you're essentially family now." Sherlock says this casually, like an accepted truth.

Now that is odd. "And where will you be?"

"Pretending to be late. But actually, upstairs. I just need something. Confirmation."

John nods. "OK. Where and when do you want to do it?"

"We'll leave in the morning. First thing."

John snorts. "Bit of an elastic concept, with you. What time?"

A mock-scowl. "Eight o'clock. Unpleasantness does not improve for being put off."

John ponders Sherlock for a moment. "You seem cheerful."

"Do I. I suppose."

Ok, no clues there. But Sherlock does seem lighter, freer. He is holding himself poised in his chair, alert, and his eyes are now fixed on his phone.

John looks at him. Keeps his face still. This man, this amazing man he kissed. Whose lips are as soft and warm as John has imagined. Whose body, through the red silk, radiated heat as John leant over him. Warm skin and strong hands and blue eyes. Busy now, working on something. John knows the signs. Basically Sherlock is happiest when his cheetah mind has a very difficult piece of meat to get its teeth into.

Sherlock looks up suddenly and meets John's eyes. They look at each other for long moments. They do this often, and it never gets old.

Total trust, thinks John. I would go anywhere with him. Do anything. No question. And I hope he trusts me too. I know he does.

I can't possibly destroy that.

Sherlock is looking at him and there is a depth to his gaze, a softness. "John. I'm working. I need to be quiet for a bit, OK."

"Sure. Of course."

The slightest of sweet smiles. "We'll talk after," Sherlock says then.

Is he referring to last night? Perhaps. But he doesn't seem agitated. And, wait, is he actually offering to discuss anything about their ... relationship? In itself that's some kind of game changer.

"Yes," says John. His default response to Sherlock.

Sherlock continues to gaze at him with that almost-smile, eyes shimmering, soaking up data, data on John, and at last breaks eye contact.

John looks down unseeing at a newspaper from the day they went haring after Irene Adler's riddle. He can barely breathe, but suddenly the world is brighter.

Mycroft, then. Fine. He can handle Mycroft.


	28. New jeans

They are leaving Baker Street when John notices that Sherlock is wearing jeans. New jeans, solid black, narrow through the leg and to the ankle.

Now he looks, he has never seen that deep crimson shirt before either. It is dark, like a lot of Sherlock shirts, but has a very slight flicker to it. Looks heavy, thick, soft. Is it silk?

"You look ... different," says John. Remembers an earlier conversation about Sherlock's outfit, going on an experimental date with that bloke, the unsuspecting subject of Sherlock's scientific interest.

"Good?"

Gorgeous. "Yeah, looks fine."

"I might get more. Jermyn Street," Sherlock says distractedly,

Only Sherlock would get casual wear from Jermyn Street.

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The train journey is uneventful apart from the entertainment of seeing Sherlock gloweringly slumming it with a polystyrene cup of First Great Western coffee. The cab drops them at the end of a short gravelled drive. There is a Victorian villa at the end, some gardens around it. The house is made of Bath stone - appropriately, as they are ten miles from Bath - and rather mellow and welcoming.

"Nice," says John. Sherlock curls his lip.

"Mycroft's not here. We might as well just go in."

"How do you know?" There are no cars, no people, nothing. All the windows are closed.

Sherlock points to a short pole on the roof. "He flies the Union Jack when he's in."

"What?" John has to look to see if Sherlock is winding him up. Apparently not. "No one flies the Union Jack! Maybe the Queen. And isn't that just an open invitation to burglars?"

Sherlock sighs. "Yes, he does enjoy that part. Calls it shotgun practice."

They go inside, Sherlock opening the heavy front door with his key. "He'll be here shortly," Sherlock says. He hesitates. "Want to look around?"

John sees ancient light fixtures, shelves creaking with books, carpets worn to the weave with footsteps over a hundred years. "Where was your room?"

Sherlock bounds up the shallow stairs.

In the bedroom, John looks around. It is just a room, nothing left, no hint of a younger Sherlock, of anyone, really. Just a pleasant room with large windows, overlooking what he wants to call the garden but which comes out in his head as the estate. A single bed against one wall. A lot of empty shelves.

All of Sherlock's stuff is in Baker Street.

So is John's. Occupying about three shelves. Sherlock's belongings smother the rest of the flat.

"Nice room," says John, stepping to the window. "Bit different to my parents' three bedroom semi."

Sherlock waves a hand, shrugs. Seems embarrassed and curious: wanting to see John's reaction.

John is peering out of the window. "Bit of a porch out here, what, back door, is it? An easy drop."

He turns back to Sherlock, eyebrows raised.

Sherlock smiles at last. "I escaped constantly."

There is a sound of tyres on gravel. Sherlock makes a face. "He's here. Go and talk to him. I'll be down in a minute."

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When John has gone to occupy Mycroft, Sherlock glances round. The years he spent living here. They are so long ago that now it seems like coincidence.

John noticed the silk shirt earlier. This is good. If Sherlock does a thing, he is does it right. The shirt was for John. Later he will take it off for John, or preferably, let John take it off him.

He blushes as he thinks of this. Puts his hand in his inside jacket pocket. Feels the cellophaned packet. Not that anything will go that far. But still. That he is planning this is... momentous. He is nervous, in a pleasant way. Anticipation more than nerves. He paces the room a couple of times, old familiar route, to calm down.

He is not sure yet how exactly he will initiate the conversation. But he will do it, will tell John that he knows, that he loves John too, and then he will kiss John and ... see what happens. Laissez faire, says a whisper in his mind, from another day, another date. Yes. Exactly.

It has been surprisingly easy to focus the last two days, given the plan he has formed with regard to John. But he has simply sunk into the work as usual, secure in the knowledge that John does not mind this and that John will be there when he emerges. It probably helps that he has made this decision. After all this time, to come back to this.

He rejected this path outright to begin with, yet here he is. People change their minds. And the moment when he thought of him and John, a set, two parts of a unit, was when he changed his. He realised the truth, and then there it was. So simple. Yet it was nothing you could control or force.

There is a chance that John will refuse him. There are options here too, including using the look, the never-fail look. But he knows he ought not to do that to John. The other choices mostly involve talking about it - perhaps necessary but extremely dull - or merely accepting the current outcome, and trying again at a later date.

If there is any chance it will truly upset John - any chance Sherlock has been wrong about it - he will back off and leave it alone, as he did after John originally raised the subject.

It would be better if he were completely sure, sure of John, of the outcome. But even he knows that love does not work that way.


	29. Will you promise

John and Mycroft are in a yellow-wallpapered parlour with French windows opening onto a rose garden. Mycroft appears fresh and serene as always. No bags with him. He has simply appeared in this location, and is now standing by the French doors, looking out at the roses. John shut the hall door behind him as he entered, hoping to hide any noise Sherlock might be making.

John is standing awkwardly in the centre of a rug worked with a floral pattern. Like the rest of the house, this room is cosy and calm.

John has tried to ask a couple of questions about the weather, to initiate a harmless conversation, but Mycroft has been monosyllabic. John wonders how much time Sherlock needs.

Mycroft turns back to face John and speaks. "You sleep with him." Tone of absolute certainty.

How does Mycroft know?

"Your bedroom light fails to go on, on a very regular basis," says Mycroft disdainfully, as if he has read John's mind.

It means nothing, is a taunt. John doesn't always put the light on if he's heading straight to bed - what would be the point? And yet, on two nights at least, it is literally true that he slept with Sherlock.

But John is in no mood to discuss his private life with anyone, least of all this overtly hostile man in a suit which probably cost more than cars John has owned but which John still finds repellent. So he thinks John and Sherlock are having sex. So be it. He will not dignify Mycroft's accusation with an answer.

"Your life choices are your own, of course -"

"Yes, thanks, they are."

"- However my brother has a brilliant but fragile mind. He must not be allowed to descend into the mundanities of a _lifestyle_ -" Mycroft is spitting - "which revolves around daytime television and the pursuit of pointless social activities."

He pauses, looks John up and down. "When I first met you I was impressed. I saw you as someone who could support Sherlock without too much interference. Your own personality was so weak as to be subsumed by his, as was only natural."

John's nostrils flare, but otherwise he is motionless.

"But as time moved on it became clear that your presence was placing Sherlock under unreasonable strain. The madness with the apparent suicide. Because of you." John's eyes widen in amazement. "The time wasted in laddish capers and on enforced familial contact on your part. Because of you. I realised that he was in danger. Although my brother is incapable of forming attachments in the conventional sense, you are clearly important to him, on some level. That importance means that he has an Achilles heel which will always be available to his enemies."

"You're saying you want me to leave because I place him in danger? And because Sherlock and I sometimes sit in front of the box drinking beer?"

"In essence." Mycroft looks pleased with John's quick grasp of the principal points.

"Well, now you put it like that, it makes perfect sense. I don't know why you didn't just ask me in the first place." John's tone is light and careless, a tone which Sherlock would recognise but Mycroft does not.

Mycroft starts to reply but John cuts him off.

"Shut up. Not a word from you. You don't know anything about the life he and I lead together. You have no idea about friendship or love or how we are better together."

"Very poetic," says Mycroft, "but it risks Sherlock's life every day. "

"No," says John. " _He_ risks his life every day, and that's his choice. He chose me as his ... He chose me," he goes on, stumbling a little, "and that is nobody's business but his and mine."

"So you won't go, then?"

"What are you offering if I do?" John plants his feet apart, folds his arms and waits.

"No more surveillance." Mycroft glances towards the closed door. "He will return to his proper state, with my full support, which as you know is not inconsiderable."

John pauses. "You will leave him - alone?"

He speaks with absolutely neutral inflection.

"Yes," says Mycroft, not seeming to notice. "If you promise you will do the same."

John moistens his lips, shifts on his feet and then returns to his previous steady stance.

Mycroft nods at him. "Will you promise me that you will not try to finagle him into some kind of romantic _domestic situation_ which will cripple his abilities and endanger the security of the very nation?"

John looks at him for a long time. Mycroft waits with an increasing air of victory.

At last John speaks. "No. I will not promise that."

Mycroft's eyebrows shoot up. "You would risk his sanity, already at cracking point, for this so called love?"

"I don't believe he is any less sane than I am. He is certainly saner than you. In my medical opinion. So yes." John's chin is up.

"Very well. On your head be it."

"I'm very happy with my actions and responsibilities towards Sherlock," says John. "Are you?"

He turns and walks away. Pulls open the door with barely contained anger. Almost walks right into Sherlock, standing outside the door obviously listening.

"Let's go," says John, taking in with a glance Sherlock's set jaw and deadly eyes. "We don't need to waste any more energy here."

Sherlock is looking at Mycroft with a terrible coldness. He opens his lips to speak.

"You are not him," says John. "You are a human being."

Sherlock closes his mouth. He rests his hand on John's shoulder - John feels the tremor of fury in his fingers - and nods once. John leads the way out of the house and into the bright August afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Yes folks, it's Mycroft as Lady Catherine de Bourgh, inviting John to deny Sherlock. I simply *could not resist.*


	30. Interceptor

Sherlock stalks away but not towards the road - he heads off round the side of the house, past the rose garden and towards a wide expanse of green which ends in evenly spaced, low slung trees, rough grass beneath their spreading branches. An orchard.

John follows until they are standing among the apple trees, the gnarled trunks and outstretched branches begging to be climbed.

Sherlock touches one of the trees, is waiting. His face is clear and his anger from the hallway seems to have vanished.

John has calmed down too. It is difficult to be furious in an apple orchard, in sunshine, with the leaves rustling above you and soft shadows on the face of the man you love.

"Here he is," Sherlock says, drawing John's attention away.

John turns.

Striding towards the orchard, jacket off and shirt sleeves turned up in a way that makes John think, 1950s newspaper editor, is Mycroft.

"I don't have long," Mycroft says as he joins them under the trees. "It will be noticed."

Sherlock nods. All business. "The camping shop poisoning. Why didn't it happen at the right time?"

"A miscalculation of dosage. He was supposed to die in the Highlands."

Mycroft has not taunted or distracted Sherlock in any way, John notices. He is simply speaking. With a chill John realises the implication of his words - that Mycroft is connected to the Whitehall deaths.

A distinctive murdering style... John's own words during the doll and drug affair.

"I thought so. The payroll clerk was cutting it pretty fine, though. Really did look like an accident."

Mycroft nods. "That one might not have been be picked up by the police. But they called you in."

Are they really standing here off- handedly discussing the deliberate deaths of these people?

"I have to warn you," Sherlock says to Mycroft then. "Your wool suits left some distinctive fibres at the scene of those crimes. I haven't had access to the evidence from the murder on the day you sent us to Avebury."

"You were meant not to," Mycroft says smoothly.

"But I imagine you will be implicated there too."

Implicated? "Hold on," says John. "What is this? What's going on?"

Sherlock glances at him but does not reply.

"I am," says Mycroft, "over the proverbial barrel on this one. Unless you can prove my lack of involvement, I fear that this battle has been lost."

"The fibres rather prove that you were involved."

"I tried so hard to keep you off the cases. I knew you would find whatever they had planted. And my enemies hoped that our public feud meant we were also privately at each other's throats."

"Aren't you?" John asks.

Both Holmes brothers turned to stare at him. It was disconcerting, to be the focus of so much pointed intelligence.

"Not entirely," says Mycroft.

"Yes," says Sherlock. Turns back to Mycroft. "While we were in Avebury. The suddenly dead backbench MP. Any chance you can allow it to be shown as foul play?"

"None whatsoever."

"Damn. Then I will just have to demonstrate that I was wrong and that in fact all the deaths were purely accidental."

They stare at each other.

"I didn't want you to have to," Mycroft says. "I knew they would try another coup. I tried to distract you. To keep you away, occupied."

Sherlock shrugs. "You can owe me a favour."

Mycroft looks at his fob watch. Begins to move towards the house. "Perhaps a honeymoon in a pleasant part of the former Empire," he says mysteriously, his back to them.

"A proper favour," says Sherlock ungraciously.

Mycroft ignores him, walking away. "I owe you an apology, Dr Watson," he calls. "I hope you can forgive me." And then he is gone.

"Ok," says John. "What the hell was all that about?"

Sherlock is frowning. "There's going to be a general election."

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They return to the house, and stand outside the front door. Mycroft joins them again, murmuring, "Coverage is patchy here but still audible."

Mycroft is being bugged. Oh. John gets it. The need to talk in the orchard. A few things fall into place.

"Is my car still here?" Sherlock asks, clearly, sounding taut and pissed off.

"Our father's car? Yes." Mycroft, too, has adopted his earlier sneer.

Sherlock heads for what seems to be a stables but turns out to be a large garage. Mycroft unlocks the door. Three cars are inside, a red Lotus, a black Bentley and, crouching low to the left hand side, an aquamarine car, all curved glass and sleek muscular bonnet, chrome trim twinkling in the sunlight.

John says, "That's a -"

"Jensen Interceptor Mark One. The V8," says Sherlock, laying his hand on its flank.

"-Very nice car," finishes John. He has never seen this model before but it is nice, very nice indeed.

"Fuel in?" Sherlock asks Mycroft, who nods. "Then no need to linger." He scrabbles in his back jeans pocket, draws out a set of keys.

He holds open the passenger door for John in a way that makes John go weak at the knees.

"Bye Mycroft," says Sherlock. "Horrid to see you."

"Mutual I'm sure."

The engine throbs and Sherlock, jacket already flung in the back, rolls up the sleeves of that damn red shirt and places his wrists on the steering wheel. Turns to John and says, "We've got a bit of time. Where to?"

John looks at him. "Anywhere," he says.

"Ok," says Sherlock, and away they go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you wish to see the Interceptor Mk1 V8, give it a google. It is a thing of raw strength and sleek beauty, a British classic. Much like Sherlock himself.


	31. Unimportant

Sherlock drives. He drives fast - of course, but with precise movements and frowning concentration. And as he drives, he talks.

"There was an attempt to oust Mycroft from his position of power at the heart of government. It started with the supposedly natural death of a backbench MP whose vacant seat could potentially start the process not just for a by- election but a general election. Something broadly beyond Mycroft's control."

He glances at John. Is triumphant. "The letter the Idiot gave me was meant to be from Irene but it was from Mycroft. To get me away from London at the time of the first murder. I thought at the time that the riddle was unlike her. -Not enough sex," he explains seriously, and John coughs and laughs and has to look out of the window.

Sherlock continues. "Then Mycroft was kidnapped and invited to cast his lot in with the plotters, but he refused. We should have turned up with the bargaining chip straightaway, but we were at that party, miraculously an event which was not completely planned by my irritating brother." Sherlock rolls his eyes.

"Mycroft again escaped their somewhat blunt political instruments, but they already had a backup plan. They were going to make it seem as though not they, but Mycroft was planning a general election - an event which as you know can in fact only be triggered by the monarch's dissolution of Parliament. But he is sufficiently well known as a figure that it was plausible he might be able to influence it. So they continued their plans to buy people out - hence the death of the payroll clerk who spotted the anomalies - and move key players around within the Civil Service, but now they implicated Mycroft in everything."

Sherlock's fingers curled around the wheel mesmerize John. Sherlock looks younger, freer, out here with the windows wound down and Somerset blazing past.

"He said he didn't want you to investigate," John says.

"Yes. He knew I would find that the so-called accidents were murders. And then that I would find the evidence of his link to the deaths." Sherlock grinned at John. "His enemies thought I would be delighted to prove his guilt. But Mycroft had already decided to take the fall. So he tried everything he could think of to prevent me from getting involved with the murder cases."

"I can't imagine Mycroft giving up," John says.

Sherlock does not reply. His eyes are in the road.

"I guess you are brothers," John said. "He didn't want you to have to discover his guilt. His supposed guilt."

He thinks about it some more. "But... he must have known you would realise the evidence was planted."

"Yes," said Sherlock, with a quick glance of approval at John.

"So why didn't he just let you expose the murders for what they were?"

"Democracy. He cannot let it be known how fragile our system of government really is."

"Oh." Mycroft the patriot.

"Also I imagine they threatened to kill him." He speaks lightly. His hair is frantic in the breeze.

There is something else. John knows that type of silence all too well. "They threatened to kill you," he says. "That's why."

"Us," says Sherlock. "Mycroft picked a fight with me over you, to give me a reason to send you away, to safety. I didn't realise until today. I knew he would never truly say those things to you."

John thinks of the row he had with Mycroft in the yellow parlour earlier, and flushes. Was that really just acting? But his own responses had been true. And - Sherlock had heard what was said.

Sherlock scowls. "And so, even though I am the one who has to undergo public humiliation, in Mycroft's estimation _I_ will still owe _him_ a favour." His fingers tighten on the thin steering wheel. Then he lets out breath, relaxes. "Unimportant. In the scheme of things, unimportant."

The scenery flies past in a golden blur and as Sherlock acknowledges, in his odd, indirect way, his love for his brother, John cannot take his eyes off him. "You," John says. "Are extraordinary."

Sherlock glances over with a fond smile and taps John's knee.

Oh. Do that again.

"Can you drive for a bit?" Sherlock asks. "I need to work."

"Am I insured to drive this?" He must be sensible even as he longs to get his hands on this beautiful, powerful machine.

"I added you to my insurance yesterday."

John is weirdly touched by this. He gets an echo of Sherlock saying, you're family now. "Ok. Where to?"

"We're booked into a pub near a place called Solsbury Hill."

"Like the Peter Gabriel song. -Never mind." Sherlock and popular culture, two different worlds.

"It's on the outskirts of Bath so just aim generally for there by the end of the day."

"Will do."

Sherlock pulls into a lay-by so they can swap seats. Takes off his seatbelt but pauses.

John stops too, in the act of opening the door.

It is a warm day and here, in a narrow lane next to a farmer's gate, John can hear birdsong and sheep calling.

Sherlock is looking intently at John. His eyes are very blue in this bright sunlight. His eyelashes tremble as he gazes at John's face.

He puts his warm hand on John's knee - John's thigh, in fact - and opens his lips to speak.

Then his phone rings and he instantly picks it up. Slides his hand away.

Oh. Sherlock. Whatever it was, I want to hear you say it.


	32. Evidence for forever

It is late and Sherlock has been silent in the oak-beamed pub for hours. The required phone calls happened while they were on the road. Since they got here and had dinner beside the fire in the bar, Sherlock has been emailing and texting. Constantly texting.

Finally Sherlock drops his phone on the little hammered-copper table which is between their two armchairs, and flops back in his seat. He closes his eyes.

He has done it, then. Compromised his professional pride to help Mycroft. He looks tired but calm.

"We should go up," John says. Upstairs is the one room which Sherlock has booked and, John hopes, a chance to sort things out between him and Sherlock.

He wants to know, he realises. Even if Sherlock is only messing with him, he just wants to know. And if the answer is a No, then, well, they will deal with it.

And if the answer is a Yes, but just a Yes for sex, what then, does he still want it?

Well, he is only human. (Sherlock's fingertips on the inside seam of John's jeans). But that's not what he really wants.

OK, now he is inventing problems for scenarios which themselves are invented.

Sherlock opens his eyes and looks at his watch. "Nearly ten. We're going out."

"Why? Where?"

His first instinct is not, No, or protests, just questions about the specifics. It is already a given that if Sherlock says they are doing something then it is going to happen. John quite likes this about them.

"I want to show you something," Sherlock says, standing. "It's what I was going to tell you about that time I came back and found you and Theresa at the flat."

"Right..."

"Put your coat on. I've got a rug and a torch."

"A rug?"

"Yes. Your coat isn't long enough."

They leave the pub and climb a rough path towards the summit of Solsbury Hill. It takes longer than John expected; the scale of the hill is deceptive. "This was a defensive position," says Sherlock. "It was a religious site too. A kind of sacred fortress."

"The leaflet said that all the ley lines in the area converge here." John has had hours and hours to read the tourist literature, puzzle over the events of the last few months, and gaze at Sherlock.

Sherlock snorts derisively. "You can draw a line between any two points."

They climb in silence.

"Here," Sherlock says. They have crossed the open hillside, Bath's lights orange to the west, and are standing under light cover of spindly trees. Sherlock hunts about, finds a small clearing.

He unrolls the rug with a flourish and throws it on the ground. Flings himself down, his coat spreading out around him, and looks up at the sky. "Come on John."

John gets down too, on Sherlock's left, stretches out. The earth smells green and he can hear the minute movements of insects in the grass close to his ear.

"What are we looking at?"

"The stars," says Sherlock. "Perseids."

"Meteor showers," says John.

"Yes."

Sherlock turns towards him and begins speaking rapidly. "Theresa found me empty, I didn't want anything, and she tried to show me that feeling nothing can mean you are missing a part of yourself. She suggested I look at a greater nothing to realise how much is in me."

"The night sky," says John quietly. He thinks of Sherlock arriving home in the early mornings, his coat wet with dew.

"Yes nonsense of course," scathingly, "but it was very relaxing. And that night I saw a shooting star for the first time. I just wanted to share it with you."

"And instead you found me on the sofa with her." Oh.

"Yes, yes, that part isn't important. I want you to see it now."

Sherlock switches off the torch. "It will take a few minutes for your eyes to get used to the light levels," he says as if John might be new to this concept.

John smiles in the dark.

They lie and look up at the sky.

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The sky brightens and hawthorn branches frame a perfect field of stars. John knows it is an illusion, and that it is only his eyes adjusting, pupils dilating to allow more light, more information, to reach the brain. But it is a pleasant illusion, and now, if he turns his head, he can see Sherlock's face.

Still beautiful.

Stars gleam and twinkle above them. John can see why Sherlock likes it. He pictures him, coming home excited to tell John, and being prevented by selfish, jealous lust, and his heart aches.

He wonders again what Sherlock really thinks. He thinks constantly: some of it, surely, must be about John.

Sherlock leans up on his left elbow and speaks. "I heard what my brother said to you. And your reply."

John feels heat rush into his face.

"The fight was mainly for the benefit of the listeners. To maintain the impressions of our enmity. But ... it gave me hope, to hear you refuse to make that promise."

John's heart is beating rapidly. Thinks of Mycroft saying, honeymoon. Clamps down the rush of emotion which is pouring into his face, chest, belly, legs. He stays silent because he does not trust any sound which will come from his throat.

"I knew that if you were not afraid to say it to him, you could not be afraid to say it to me." Sherlock speaks quietly but clearly.

John's mind is spinning. He needs to speak but cannot. He had thought they might have this conversation in the bedroom, but once again Sherlock has taken him by surprise. "Sherlock -"

"John. You have shown such strength in every way towards me and I can't let this go unsaid." Sherlock reaches out for John's hand. Warm strong fingers entwine with John's. "I love you," he says. "I just want you to know."

John says nothing. His hand is limp and passive in Sherlock's.

Sherlock starts to slide his hand away but John grabs it. His face is turned to the stars.

"Look," says John softly. "There they are."

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The stars burst above them in matchless patterns of light and motion.

Sherlock lies still, watching the sky, feeling John's hand in his and how right that is, and wishes for eloquence.

"Is ... this ... what you want?" John says at last.

More is being asked here. Sherlock can see too many variables to answer properly. He can be clear on one thing, the now, but the rest, the future, is too fuzzy. Too unknown. "Be with me. Now."

But ... he must be honest with himself. He can imagine what John is asking. There is more. He has felt more, wanted more, and because John is not actually psychic he will have to express more.

Before he can think about it too deeply, he adds, "And - touch my hair again."

A pause as John registers this. Understands, if he did not before, that Sherlock knows, and how.

"Please," whispers Sherlock. He knows - hopes - knows - that John cannot say no to a plea.

John's expression has flickered from shock to realisation, and now to tenderness. He leans on his right elbow, moving his body close, and reaches up with the other hand to run his fingers through Sherlock's fringe. "Not a problem," he murmurs, dragging his fingers lightly down behind Sherlock's ear and onto the bare skin of his neck, and Sherlock gasps.

Sherlock closes his eyes, opens them again immediately. Can not not look at John. That strength. John's expression still reveals so little. He is smiling, sure, but - there is so much in him, so much Sherlock has never calculated.

"What was that about love?" John asks, still caressing Sherlock's hair and, as an adjunct, his neck.

"I said... I love you." It is true. No game, no ploy. John is looking directly at him - is lying right next to him, neither of them in more than a couple of layers of fabric - he must see and feel that it is true.

"Do you mean as a friend?" John speaks easily. He thinks he gets it.

"Yes. And no. You are my friend, always. But this is something else as well."

John moves his eyes from Sherlock's face for a moment, glances down the rug.

"Not just that," Sherlock says. "That can mean nothing at all."

"Not to me. Definitely conveys something to me."

Sherlock shakes his head. "Yes, but that's not all. I mean-" -deep breath, time to be explicit - "romantic love."

And for the first time, he sees John's lip quaver.

Now. It has to be now.

Sherlock reaches for John and pulls him close. Looks into his eyes and sees desire and terror and hope. He thinks his own face probably shows this too. Very gently he kisses John's lips, and moves away, then cannot stop himself and kisses him again, parts his lips and runs his tongue over the tip of John's. John's eyes are open and his mouth is warm and soft and he is amazing. "I love you," says Sherlock, and sees lights in John's eyes, sees and feels the tension drop from his face. Sherlock has his hand in John's hair and it is thick, textured, wonderful. It should always have been under Sherlock's hand and Sherlock should always have possessed John like this. "You are part of me," he says, and tears run from John's eyes.

Then at last he feels John's arms go around his neck as John kisses him back, fiercely, passionately, desperately.

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Sherlock tastes salt and sweet, like Japanese rice crackers. His skin smells of water. And he is more beautiful, in passion, than John has ever imagined.

He runs his hands over Sherlock's face and neck, traces his fingers over his throat and down to his clavicle, and Sherlock draws breath in sharply and is so ... astonished.

John's touch is doing this - the gasps, the shivers, the closed eyes given over to pleasure as John tangles his fingers in Sherlock's hair and kisses him again.

He is touching him and kissing him and crying over him and Sherlock radiates relief and delight.

"I love you," Sherlock says again, and pauses, but John cannot reply. Not yet.

He unbuttons the gorgeous silk collar, watching Sherlock's face for an adverse reaction but there is only dark amusement and heat in Sherlock's eyes. He slides his hands inside Sherlock's shirt, feeling warm skin and then Sherlock is trembling in anticipation as John kisses him. John spiders his fingers over Sherlock's chest, kisses every rib, runs his hand over Sherlock's stomach then around his back and and down inside the waistband of his jeans. Sherlock's hands travel over him, mapping his body with precise movements. John grabs Sherlock's hands and holds them where they cannot interfere, which gets him raised eyebrows and a look of keen interest. John's hands are everywhere.

Sherlock's eyes flare very blue and hold unusually steady. He is letting John have control, and John willingly takes it.

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John says, "I'm not a first date kind of guy." Sherlock would do everything all at once, no surprise there, but John wants to savour.

Sherlock says, "This isn't a date." He pushes his thumb into John's mouth as John leans over him.

John lets his teeth drag over the rough skin as he slides the thumb from his mouth. He grips Sherlock's hand to keep him in check. "You'll have to wait..."

"-You know I hate waiting -" In fact, cannot wait. He will expire.

"...For some things. -I'm not that cruel."

A pause as Sherlock assesses the meanings. "Really?"

"No promises." John lets go of Sherlock's hand, slides his own hand down to a tender spot his mouth found earlier, and pinches.

Sherlock clenches in pleasurable pain. "I can wait."

"Yes, you can."

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There is fumbling and nose bumping and awkwardness and helpless giggles at how out of practice they both are.

"I've forgotten what I'm doing," complains Sherlock. Leaning over John, pressing his tongue into the soft tissue under John's jaw.

"I thought you never forgot anything." Rolling Sherlock over and kissing him until he thrashes for air. John has the better lung function and will win at this every time.

"You're making me forget." Sneaky grapple hold and John is flat out once again.

"Blame me, why don't you."

There is kissing and biting and delicious groping and breathless rolling over on the ground onto sharp thistles unseen in the dark and yelps and then more laughter at how ridiculous this is, how stupid and real and wonderful.

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"You know, this is really romantic," says John, twining Sherlock's arms and legs around himself.

"Yes." A trifle smugly.

Of course he planned it all. Typical.

"Starlight and kissing. There should be candles and roses and soft music."

"Bollocks," says Sherlock, making John splutter in surprise because Sherlock so rarely swears. "There should be you and me and nobody else and oh look that's exactly what there is and come here."

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"I've never seen you like this," whispers John at last. They are sprawled languidly in a jumble of Sherlock's clothes. John leans on his right elbow and lets his left hand rest on Sherlock's hip. His right hand is in Sherlock's hair again, tugging and smoothing the curls in a sensual rhythm. Sherlock looks as if he will never move again. His eyes are still, his gaze resting lightly, freely on John.

"I've never been in love before," says Sherlock.

"I have," says John. "But never with you and it's different." Sherlock has barely touched him yet but every time John feels those fingers on his skin he thinks it is the end.

Sherlock sits up suddenly, careless of the fact that they are lying half dressed under trees on a chilly August morning. "Tell me," he instructs. "Tell me you love me."

John looks into his intense, dazzlingly alive face: sees fierce possessiveness and pride and underneath it all a sliver of insecurity, vulnerability, fear, that John is somehow fooling him. That he understands something that Sherlock has missed, that Sherlock is getting this being human business all wrong, again. "You know I love you," says John, winding his fingers through Sherlock's.

" _Now_ I do," says Sherlock. He reaches for John with those hands which look delicate but are strong and sure, and adds with the air of someone who has been more than patient, "And now it's my turn."

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John is woken by Sherlock's lips on his mouth, his right hand sliding down John's belly. Sherlock is drawing lines with his tongue on John's lower lip. John opens his eyes. There is Sherlock, and increasing light in the sky.

"I want you," murmurs Sherlock, "I want you everywhere, I want all of your skin." His breath is hot on John's neck.

"Morning," says John mildly. He wriggles, moves Sherlock off him, sits up. The air is chilly and fresh - perfect, actually, the kind of air that makes you wonder why people bother with houses - but it is time for clothes. John starts pulling on his T shirt, fastening jeans.

He glances down to see Sherlock glaring up at him. Leans in, can feel the confusion and anticipation of hurt, underneath the sulk. John smiles at him. "Yes, by the way, to all those things. More. But first let's get inside and at least get some benefit from having booked a room."

They walk down the stony path, grey dawn light showing mist settled in the valley and sheep already moving methodically across the opposite hillside.

Sherlock seems tense. John keeps looking at him. "What?" he says when they are finally in the unused bedroom. Sherlock just shakes his head.

John actually wants a shower, but takes his clothes off and pulls Sherlock's off too. Pushes him into bed, climbs in and holds him, kisses him. Sherlock kisses back, eyes open, searching John's face.

He looks ... distressed.

John strokes his hair, waits for him to speak. Meanwhile his other hand seeks out the hyper-sensitive spot he discovered last night, the place where Sherlock's palm meets his wrist, left hand. John runs his ring finger over it in tiny circles.

Sherlock's eyes suddenly fill with tears. "You remembered." He is blinking, annoyed with himself.

"Yes," says John, "of course." It was only a couple of hours ago.

Then he twigs. Looks at Sherlock, so beautiful, confident, skilled in ways John really wants to experience more of, and sees him anew: lonely.

He hesitates, incredulous. "You've never done it twice with anyone."

"Not over... a period of time."

God, thinks John, it's been less than six hours and we're already at second date. Also: you have only ever had one night stands. Those many lovers, they weren't significant. And that makes this special, oh God, I am your first real lover.

He says, "You mean... nobody ever learned what you like." He traces his fingers around the back of Sherlock's right earlobe. Can see immediately that his guess is correct. "Nobody ever bothered to get to know you."

"It was mutual," Sherlock admits.

"This is different," John promises firmly. "This is us, remember?"

He taps Sherlock's chest to emphasise the point, then wraps both arms round him in a hug, squeezes protectively. Without even having to think about it he says, "This is forever."

"Such certainty," says Sherlock, but not mockingly: fondly. His eyes flicker around the room. "I am only certain of things I can find evidence to support. Forever is not really that kind of concept."

"Evidence for forever is built up over every day for the rest of your life," says John. He stops because he has surprised himself with his own vehemence.

Sherlock stares at him with wide eyes. Seems to be marvelling. "I am in love," he says wonderingly.

"Good," says John. "Now, do you want to shower on your own or with me?"

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They are clean and fresh and back in bed. There is so much to say and John does most of the saying but Sherlock speaks with eyes and lips and teeth and all of himself and John does not mind the lack of verbal communication. John is definitely in charge most of the time and Sherlock never thought that would be acceptable but it is. John wants to go home after breakfast; Sherlock is thinking about a trip somewhere far away, in a corner of the former Empire. He intends to call in every single favour. It is fortuitous that he is owed so many.

John looks so happy. Sherlock feels the final part of himself caving in, the fortress of emptiness tumbling away, but instead of a perilous void where the keystone has been, there is warmth and certainty and solidity. There is John. John's fingers are gripping Sherlock's hair and his tears run down into Sherlock's mouth and his eyes are so full of joy that Sherlock cannot say anything except I love you, over and over again and each time it is shining and true.

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note:  
> This is the end and I am rather sad! This really was intended as a series of drabbles but then it got me by the throat and I kept writing. Therefore there may be (are) various plot holes as well as the sudden tense change half way through... If you spot glaring errors please say and I will iron them out. But basically thank you for letting me know you enjoyed this.
> 
> The magnificence and beauty of the Jensen Interceptor Mk 1 can be enjoyed by googling. Avebury is magical no matter the reason you're sent there. And Solsbury Hill is a place where all the ley lines of the South West cross and anything can happen.
> 
> There will be more romance and first times and John and Sherlock very soon. -Sef


End file.
